Meledon Phoenix: Prophecies, Pack and Pizza
by Alex R. Collins
Summary: The Storm of Diagon Alley had more far reaching consequences than anyone suspected...
1. The Storm of Diagon Alley

Before you plunge into the chapter, I'm going to state a few things about the _Meledon Phoenix_ universe, which will continue on beyond _Book One: Prophecies, Pack and Pizza_.

1. This story will cross Anne Walsh's _Dangerverse_ (based off Joanne Kathleen Rowling's _Harry Potter_) with _Power Rangers_, created by Haim Saban, produced originally by MMPR Productions, Inc., which was a subsidiary of Saban Entertainment. Saban Entertainment then became BVS Entertainment when the Walt Disney Company purchased the franchise—and as far as I've made out, Disney still owns the _Power Rangers_ rights, so there you have it. Except one must consider that as of _The End Of The Power Rangers, Part II_, MMPR Productions, Inc. ended and was taken over by Village Roadshow, which apparently changed its name to Ranger Productions, Inc. between the end of _Power Rangers Dino Thunder_ and the start of _Power Rangers Space Patrol Delta_ so if and how that affects anything, I don't know.

2. I've borrowed a concept from Terry Pratchett's _Discworld_—the personification of Death, to be exact. It fits in with an idea I've had about the Deathly Hallows.

3. The Power Rangers series are commonly accepted to take place in the year they air, unless the series explicitly contradicts that, as in _Power Rangers Space Patrol Delta_. Not so in here—whilst I will obey canon up to a point, I have pulled forward events, hence the first team of Rangers are called into service nine years earlier than canon.

4. I'm operating on a very sped up Ranger timeline: the first three years/seasons of MMPR are finished in a little more than a year from recruitment to what will be _A Zeo Beginning_. Part of this is that the Rangers are fighting to save the world—yet in the series, their opponents are little more than pushovers. Honestly, it's like anyone could just take them on if they had a Morpher. That changes here—the Rangers are up against pure evil and they're going to know it.

5. Yes, Voldemort and his Death Eaters are also going to be much, much worse. This is war, my friends. Evil is powerful and evil never fights fair. Deal with it.

6. I realise full well the sentai from which _Power Rangers_ is adapted likes to emphasise the all powerful Red Rangers with Battlizers, or the awesome cool 'extra' Ranger/s and whatnot. That also will not happen in here—some Red Rangers will get powered up, but getting powered up will not be limited to the Reds alone. The extra Rangers will merely add extra strength—there'll be none of this 'I'll come and save the day because I'm better than all of you put together' crap. Also remember: a Ranger is nothing without their powers.

I admit full well that I am biased towards certain Rangers and in studying the story, you will no doubt see my particular biases. And for the record, I am not a Justin hater, so don't expect me to write him off.

7. Whilst no wizard or witch will be straight off the bat powerful, the wizards and witches of the Light are going to have chances to become powerful—but _all_ of the chances are going to come with a price (for example, Harry may learn Parsel magic, but at the cost of having the soul fragment that makes him a Horcrux affect him in some fashion). Some are going to require hard work. Others will require greater sacrifices. Bottom line is that I intend to try and make my characters _believably_ powerful—that is to say, if you're willing to put in the work, you can become this powerful.

8. Yes, I have Original Characters, though I do not consider them Mary Sues. Example: Adira Wasserman starts out evil and powerful. However, as stated above, she'll be powerful because she's _evil_. If the Rangers ever get around to breaking the hold evil has on her, she will lose all her power and become just like the other good Rangers. I don't see the point in giving an evil Ranger powers they get to keep after turning good—you might as well just make them good from the start.

9. Characters and events will be skewed through my perceptions—you're getting what _I_ see the characters and events as. This may extend to downplaying/playing up certain things about the characters and the character's states.

~*~

**Meledon Phoenix: Prophecies, Pack and Pizza  
Chapter One: The Storm of Diagon Alley And Its Aftermath**

~*~

**Paul Gryffindor Interferes**

The Founders had many different universes to view, all with various purposes—the main universe, control universes, side-worlds and more. In all of those universes, however, their part in it was clear: to help in varying levels. But there were some universes that needed nothing from them. In quiet times, the Founders might go and observe events in these universes—Alex had once likened it to television; although he got withering replies and glances, he was right. All they had to do was watch and let it play out.

It was in one of these universes that Paul Gryffindor found something to interest him. It was purely by chance that he found it—he had been looking through random universes, searching for something 'interesting'. What he saw nearly gave him a heart attack. After he'd recovered, he ran a few tests and was forced to conclude with his original observations.

In this world, there appeared to be a small, select group of Muggles who could use magic, or rather an aspect of magic. It was not an inherent ability—rather, it seemed to be drawn from various talismans of power. From Paul's perspective, it was quite limited in range and scope, but as expected, the Muggles found it amazing beyond their dreams, always finding that it would do what they needed. The real kicker for Paul was that the women wore spandex as a requirement of using their powers.

Paul found himself coming back to this universe, watching as these Muggles prevailed against dark odds and darker times. Many times he felt tempted to step in, offer some help, but he did not, for several reasons. First, this was not a universe he had any claim to. Second, the help he was permitted to give in the case of it being a universe he did have claim to was limited to wizards and witches. Which none of them were—there had been times when he suspected that one of them might be magical, but he could not prove it.

He was so caught up in observing the spandex-clad females, though, that he had never thought to check up on the state of the wizarding world. If he had, he would have seen that the war was beginning to spill out into the Muggle world. As it was, there were problems with universes the Founders _did_ have claim to and for a time, Paul forgot all about Spandex-World.

When he had time to return, what he found was a world decimated. There were few survivors of the Light. Evil reigned, even going so far as to hunt down the last few members of the Light Resistance. This was _wrong_, so it seemed to Paul Gryffindor. Acting with the recklessness and impetuousness that so characterised the Gryffindors, Paul attempted interference with this world.

"It was going alright when you left," Paul muttered. "Then turn back time, bolster the side of Light and give them what they need to win!"

Using a simple hand gesture, he directed his power to begin the first step of rewinding time, watching events as cause followed effect. He got so lost in events that he never noticed that another presence joined the room until the magic slammed into his, beginning to fight what he was doing. Alarmed at the attack—for the magic did not feel in any way like the magic of his fellow Founders, Paul fought back. It was a natural response, yet stupid—Paul knew very well that interference in worlds not assigned to you could bring repercussions aimed solely at preventing your interference—but he was lost in the heat of the fight.

Two things happened almost simultaneously.

There was a _snap_ which echoed through the room.

And Paul collapsed to the ground, ropes of yellow energy wrapping around him.

"Stupid, impulsive Gryffindor!" a voice said, sharp but feminine.

As Paul watched, a pretty woman—Asian in heritage—stepped over to him, glimmers of yellow energy flickering about her form before they dissipated. Her black hair was flowing about in the wind created by the energy, but it settled down against her yellow dress once the energy had been cut off. She carried no visible sign of power, but Paul could feel it radiating out from her. Now that he was not battling against the power, he could recognise it felt strange to his senses. It was different to what he was used to in infinite ways, but there was a sense of familiarity as well. The most puzzling thing to him was that—to his senses—the power felt yellow.

"You are Paul Gryffindor, one of those who swore the Founders' Oath and as such, earned the right to be here, in the Founders' Hogwarts, yes?"

"Yes," he said, regarding the woman with caution. "But who are you?"

"I am the one who has responsibility for the universe that you just interfered in," the woman said, looking towards the screen that showed the universe. "Imagine my surprise when someone else tried to do something. And that it was one of the Founders, who I had been told would have no say in my experimentation."

"What do you mean?" Paul said with confusion in his voice.

The woman sighed and extended her hand. "Trini Kwan, Yellow Ranger. One of Zordon's Chosen. I must speak with all of you at once. It is important."

~*~

**The Founders' Hogwarts—The Great Hall**

The atmosphere was charged as the Founders gathered. Rowena did not seem pleased to see Trini, Godric and Helga appeared neutral and the remaining Founders were confused.

"What's going on?" Alex said, looking around. "And who's the new girl?"

"This is Trini Kwan," Rowena said. "She also has command over several universes, none of which have anything to do with us—"

"Tell that to Paul," Trini said. "He was the one who interfered."

All eyes swung onto Paul, who looked nervous. "The world had magic! Wizarding magic! That falls under our purview, doesn't it?"

"Yes, I know," said Rowena. "I gave her permission for the wizarding magic."

"...you did?"

"I did. You would know these things if you'd thought to come _check_ with us _first_."

"Perhaps," said Adam, "it would be best if Miss Kwan could explain her position to us?"

Trini nodded, watching as Godric conjured chairs for them all in their respective House colours, leaving her a white one. As she sat down, the chair turned yellow and Helga turned an eye on her.

"Not a Hufflepuff, I'm afraid. I would be more inclined to Ravenclaw," Trini said. "Where to begin..."

"The beginning's always a good place to start," Alex said.

"In my world, I was a Ranger," Trini said, closing her eyes. "I drew on the power of the Saber-toothed Tiger to become the Yellow Ranger. After a time, I was selected to attend the Teen Peace conference in Geneva, Switzerland, along with two of my friends. It was therefore necessary that I transfer my powers to another person and once it was done, I left Rangering forever—or so I thought."

"What—oh, you're here?" Alex said.

"As Rangers, we knew things that we would need to know in order to use our powers effectively—because to have held the Power is admission to the Morphin Grid upon your death, so that your knowledge may be used for future generations of Rangers," Trini said. "I was given a choice, though. I could go to the Morphin Grid—or I could take a seat on the Morphin Masters' Council. I chose the Council."

"And the Council does what we do?" Maura said.

"Yes," said Trini. "I had been experimenting with worlds, trying to create conditions that would see an end to the need for Rangers. This has been going on for far too long, for many of us—we have a Council Member who is over twenty-thousand years old. There is something to be said for the Rangers of Earth: as little respect as we get from the Council of the Morphin Masters, the end of needing Rangers start with the Earth Rangers."

"The Council of the Morphin Masters?" said Alex. "I'm confused."

"There is Hogwarts and the Founders' Hogwarts," Trini said. "There is the Council of the Morphin Masters and the Morphin Masters' Council. They're analogous to each other."

The Founders nodded and encouraged, Trini went on. "As I said, any point earlier than the formation of the original Earth Rangers did not work as I wanted it to. So I began to look at points after said formation. I experimented with varying things. I looked in at other universes to see what I could choose for my Rangers."

"And you saw that one of your Rangers was a wizard and therefore came to me to see what could be done," Rowena said. "I gave you what you requested. What happened?"

"It got out of my control," Trini said, her tone matter of fact. "The Voldemort war, the Rangers' battle... you gave me the wizarding world and yet you failed to give me any way in which I could affect it! You also did not tell me that the introduction of the wizarding world would integrate itself so completely that there would be no removing it if it was not what I wanted."

Silence descended on the group, giving Trini a few moments to work out her thoughts.

"Miss Kwan, are you alright?" Maura said, noticing the blood had drained from Trini's face.

"Lily Evans..." Trini said.

"What about Lily Evans?"

"...nothing," Trini said, calming herself. "I appear to have been mistaken. It is of little consequence."

"I admit that I did not inform you of everything, but truly, I did not know it myself," Rowena said, her voice quiet. "As to your inability to affect the wizarding world, I apologise for that, but I did not expect that you would be unable to affect it."

"Accepted," Trini said.

"Do you know what you are planning to do?" Rowena said.

"Yes, I do. I believe that I now know every single variable I need to have in play to make this universe go as the Council needs," she said.

"Because of my own oversight—and Paul's interference—we will help you, if you wish it," said Rowena.

"Thank you," Trini said, inclining her head. She closed her eyes and in a flicker of yellow energy, the world opened before her. "May we begin?"

~*~

Thursday, January 24th, 1980.

**The Storm of Diagon Alley**

Lily Evans hated being pregnant.

It wasn't that she suffered from any of the complications of pregnancy—all but morning sickness were easily cured with potions and she'd only had a light case of morning sickness for the first trimester, which had ended a week ago.

No, it was simply that Rufus Scrimgeour had assigned her to a desk job.

"Oh, I _know_ his reasons were official, Letha," Lily said as they walked through Diagon Alley. "It's textbook procedure—any Auror may remain in active duty until the second trimester, though at the discretion of their superiors, they may be removed from active duty earlier."

"Go on," Aletha said. Only years of being Lily's friend enabled her to keep a tolerant tone.

"But the way he did it—gah! You'd think that completing a three year program in two and a half years would be worth some respect!"

"Lily, Scrimgeour's not worth worrying about," Aletha said. "You admitted it yourself—you were going to be taken off active duty anyway. Let it go, Lily. Besides, you're going to be gone start of May on maternity leave. Now, as your friend, allow me to say this: shut up, enjoy your day off and start planning for your baby. Do you know the gender yet?"

"No—James and I are waiting to see. We want the surprise," Lily said. A window display at Flourish and Blotts caught her eye. "Letha! Look! A new Potions book!"

Aletha allowed herself to be dragged over, thankful that Lily appeared to have taken her advice. Behind them, the sky began to darken, a wind beginning to pick up. That was the only warning before any items that were remotely magical within Diagon Alley gave off a burst of magical energy and then became defunct. Lily's instincts—Auror honed—had reacted at once as she spun around, dropping into a crouch. Magical energy hummed through the air, crackling and snapping.

"Lily, what is it?!"

"I don't know, Letha! This can't be the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters—they're not even here!"

"But what else could it be?" Aletha called as the storm worsened. She fought her way to Lily's side, noting the deserted street. "My wand's not working!"

Lily muttered a magical detection spell—the first spell to mind—but nothing happened. "Mine isn't either—"

A burst of magic exploded.

Then all Aletha knew was oblivion.

~*~

**Diagon Alley—Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour**

"Lumos!"

A faint spark issued from her wand. Alice cursed—she'd been trying for the past ten minutes to get a response.

"Lumos!"

Her wand tip burst into light and with a grim smile, Alice Longbottom exited Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, scanning the street. She fought the desire to run to the crumpled form near Flourish and Blotts—if this was the work of the Dark Lord, doing so would be fatal. However, she was soon able to say that whatever had happened here was not the work of the Dark Lord, for it simply did not match up with his modus operandi and there was also a lack of Death Eaters.

"What happened here?" she said, drawing close to the crowd that had gathered around the crumpled form. Several voices tried to answer at once and little by little, the pieces began to fit together as Alice conducted interviews.

Lily Potter and Aletha Freeman had been looking at a display in Flourish and Blotts, before the storm had come out of nowhere and the magical items had failed. There'd been the sound of an explosion—no shockwave though, Alice was quick to note—and when they came out there, all they'd found was an unconscious Aletha Freeman.

"Someone floo-call St. Mungo's and have them await us," Alice said as she noticed Aletha beginning to stir. "Easy now, Aletha." Alice knelt next to the young woman. "Are you hurt?"

"Just dizzy," Aletha said. She sat up—and then rolled over and heaved up everything. This did appear to make her a lot better, for her eyes were clear as she sat back up again. With an absent look, she waved her hand, cleaning the cobblestones with a non-verbal spell and without her wand.

"Can you tell me something?" Aletha said.

"What?" Alice said, looking impressed with the display of magic.

"How did I get here?"

~*~

**St Mungo's**

"Where's Aletha Freeman?" Sirius said, his tone rushed and demanding as he dropped the Portkey that had taken him to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

"Spell Damage, fourth floor," the receptionist said in a bored tone. Sirius had bolted off before the first word was even out of her mouth.

The Healer was not impressed when Sirius Black burst into the room.

"Sirius! You're here, finally!" Aletha said.

"Well, that answers that," the Healer said.

"What's wrong with her? I heard what happened at the Alley, but what's wrong?"

"Well, she's got a lot of excess magic in her system, so she'll be overpowering her spells for a week or so and she'll also be more capable for about the same length of time—I understand she performed a non-verbal spell wandlessly," the Healer said.

"And?"

"Well, she's got the symptoms of having been Obliviated. Except she wasn't Obliviated, not by any means we know about," the Healer said. "Furthermore, this Obliviation is strange: Aletha knows who people are; knows everything she was taught at Hogwarts—everything you'd expect her to know, in short."

"But?" Sirius said, too skilled in half truths and evading the point from his time at Hogwarts to not recognise it here.

"I can't remember anything before I woke up and Alice Longbottom brought me here," Aletha said.

"What?!" Sirius said.

Aletha shrugged. Sirius crossed over to her and held her hand.

"I've never had a case like this," the Healer said. "It's not a straightforward Obliviation—there's nothing to undo magically. That said, she may recover her memories. She may not. I'm sorry I can't be more help. We want to keep you overnight, Aletha, to monitor your excess magic."

"Excuse me," Sirius said, feeling his pocket beginning to vibrate. He stepped off to the cast, casting a privacy charm before pulling out his mirror. "Prongs? What is it? What happened to Lily?"

"How's Aletha?" James said, evading the question.

"She's fine, I'll give you more details later. Now stop evading my question. What happened to Lily?"

With a resigned tone, James began to recount his conversation with Alice.

~*~

_"Come on through, Alice," James said, stepping back from the fireplace. After the woman had come through, he looked at her with a frown. "What's wrong?"_

_"I was shopping in Diagon Alley today, as were your wife and Aletha Freeman," Alice said. "A magical storm or some equivalent came out of nowhere. It rendered all magical devices inoperable for the duration, Obliviated Aletha and caused Lily to disappear."_

_"Disappear? How could she disappear?"_

_"I don't know," Alice said. "The only thing I am certain of is that You-Know-Who is not behind this, as he was not present, nor were any Death Eaters."_

_"Are there any theories?"_

_"Probably loads of them by now," Alice said. "Diagon Alley had a fair share of people present."_

_"But what do you as an Auror say?"_

_"As an Auror?" Alice hesitated. "I don't know what to say. My instincts tell me she's dead, my heart's telling me I just have to find her."_

~*~

"What do you think, Prongs?" Sirius said. James didn't respond and Sirius growled in his throat. "Stay there and don't do anything," he said. Shutting the mirror off, he cancelled the privacy charm and looked at the Healer. "Where's a Floo I can have?"

The Healer gave him directions and Sirius dashed off to firecall Remus. James was going to need his friends.

~*~

**Unknown Location—Voldemort's Headquarters**

"Come in, Lucius," Voldemort said.

"My lord, I bring news," Lucius said, kneeling to kiss Voldemort's robes.

"What news do you bring?"

"There was an event at Diagon Alley this morning—a magical storm that whipped out of nowhere," Lucius said. "Current reports suggest that the mudblood Freeman has been Obliviated, although the extent is unknown. Also, the mudblood Potter married has vanished."

"Vanished, Lucius?"

"The mudbloods were in the Alley when the storm came, my lord. When it died down, only one—Freeman—remained."

"Who are they blaming for the storm?"

"They were blaming you at first, my lord, but then they realised neither you nor your servants had been present. I believe the Ministry is going to try and research the cause of the storm."

"I require more information," Voldemort said. "You will find this out for me."

"Of course, my lord," Lucius said.

~*~

Time passed, as it does.

Lord Voldemort had ceased his attacks since the Storm of Diagon Alley; it was believed that Voldemort was waiting. For what, none but the Death Eaters knew: Voldemort did not believe it was a good idea to make any attacks before he knew exactly what the Ministry did about the storm. Although his spies were spread through the Ministry, Voldemort did not expect to find out the hows of controlling the storm, but he was confident of finding out if controlling it was possible. If the Ministry could find some way to harness this storm and use it against him, he wanted to know about it before they did.

The Order of the Phoenix was still as active as it had ever been, though the schedule had been relaxed. A single word, an inkling, that something was wrong and they would react, the schedule snapping into a higher gear.

The Ministry and the wider magical community were taking the reprieve from the attacks for granted, some would have said. Others thought it was only understandable on the part of the wider magical community. The Ministry was not wasting time, however—the months of calm had been spent preparing for the time when the war would start up again by part of the Ministry.

The Department of Mysteries had spent the time analysing the storm. The results themselves were less than pleasing—they led ever further down a path of complex Arithmantic equations.

As for the Marauders, Peter was never around, Remus was drifting from job to job, Sirius was helping Aletha Freeman to regain her memories—when she wasn't working hard at her healer training—and James... well, James had thrown himself into work, trying to avoid his grief for Lily.

~*~

Friday, June 13th, 1980.

**Albus Witnesses The Prophecy**

Albus Dumbledore muttered darkly to himself about the foulness of the weather as he hurried into the Hog's Head. _Is it worth it to continue Divination?_ he thought to himself. _It is a very imprecise branch of magic, after all._ He nodded to Aberforth, who acknowledged him before Dumbledore was left to his thoughts again. _Filius and Charity believe I should give just one more applicant a chance. She is the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous and gifted Seer, after all—it is at least common politeness to meet her._

Half an hour later, Albus was disappointed and more than a little mad at both Filius and Charity. Sybill Trelawney seemed to have no trace of the gift herself. Yet, she seemed desperate to gain the position, having tried palmistry, Tarot and crystal gazing, not to mention the five cups of tea Albus had been forced to drink in order that Sybill might read the dregs. Nothing of what she had said seemed very prophetic or even possible.

"Thank you for your time, Miss Trelawney," said Albus. "Whilst I appreciate your application, I believe you are not suited to the post. I wish you luck." He rose and turned to leave.

"_With the shift of the Untouchable Flame, worlds collide..._"

Albus turned back, looking at Sybill with wide eyes.

"_...the same eight will form down a different path..._"

Albus' brain was churning, trying to rapidly assimilate everything.

"_...as war encroaches, the choices of a few determine the fate of all... one hope remains, three hypercubed to eighty-one... by an alliance of magics will fate fall... with the shift of the Untouchable Flame, worlds collide..._"

Albus was still pondering over this Prophecy when Trelawney interrupted.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I must have drifted off."

"It's fine, Miss Trelawney. Thank you for your time. I will be in touch."

Albus left, receiving a nod from Aberforth—they had not been spied on in the course of the meeting—and made his way back to Hogwarts, his mind mulling over the prophecy. It made no sense to him. The only thing he could make sense of was that the hypercubed reference was possibly an Arithmantic equation of magical power—it was well known that multiple people raising wards could get a more powerful result.

As he passed through the doors of Hogwarts, he caught sight of the Arithmancy professor, Septima Vector.

"Septima!" he said, lengthening his strides.

"Yes, Albus?"

"Concerning Arithmancy, what do you know about hypercubing?"

"You are aware of how in maths, a number can be multiplied against another for a higher number, yes?" Septima said. At Albus' nod, Septima continued. "When a number is multiplied against itself, that is squaring the number. If you did it three times—one times one times one—that would be cubing."

"And hypercubing?"

"Well, that's when a single number is multiplied four times over, though at four and higher, we tend to say to the nth power," said Septima. "We study exponential power in runes for wards, as one example. The runes are able to take the portion of power used to activate them and increase it exponentially to become powerful—the more power, the more powerful. It is one of the reasons Hogwarts' wards have always been so strong."

"What about in more normal cases?" Albus said.

"The result can only be squared," Septima said. "Let us say that Godric could expend twenty percent of his power and raise wards for four minutes over an area of two meters by two meters. If Rowena stepped in and assisted, remembering her own power is just as great as Godric's, the wards would either last sixteen minutes or cover four meters by four meters."

"Why can the result only be squared?"

"Basic magical limitations," Septima said. "It's an Arithmantic fact multiple people can expend less energy per person in creating wards, to continue with our example. You can raise any ward you want, covering as much as space or lasting as long as you want, but it takes power you might not have, which is where using runes come in. As best as the greatest Arithmancers have been able to discover, trying to get cubed or higher results creates magical explosions unless stabilising influences like runes have been worked into it from the start."

Albus thanked the pretty Arithmancy teacher and watched her depart. It was evident that the hypercube reference could not be magical power. He didn't see how one hope could remain on achieving the impossible, seeing as hypercubing would end in an explosion.

_Unless it is meant to create an explosion._

~*~

Daily Prophet, Friday 1 August, 1980  
HARRY POTTER: THE BOY-WHO-APPEARED!  
By Rita Skeeter, Special Reporter

It can hardly be believed—indeed even this reporter cannot believe it—but the facts are incontrovertible, verified by Albus Dumbledore, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Headmaster of Hogwarts, Andromeda Tonks, a Healer at St. Mungo's and several other authorities.

Healers at St. Mungo's were surprised on July 31st when an empty room in the maternity ward began displaying magical energy similar in type to the magical storm of January 24th this year that Obliviated Aletha Freeman and heralded the disappearance of Lily Potter. Unlike the first magical storm, this was gentler and quieter in nature; however, Aurors were still called to the scene as a precaution.

After several hours, the storm faded into nothing, leaving behind a child who was not more than a few minutes old. Naturally this came as a surprise to the Healers and Aurors. Andromeda Tonks had this to say.

"The last thing we expected was a newborn child. We took care of him—had I not known that it was impossible, I would have sworn a woman had given birth to him and then disappeared out of the hospital—and then I cast a spell to try and determine anything at all about his parentage. Imagine my surprise when it told me his parents were Lily and James Potter."

When asked how that was possible—for only the Goblins at Gringotts know the secrets of determining lineage, for inheritance purposes—Andromeda shrugged.

"I'm well aware of that. The spell was more composed of intent and power—and I suspect it was helped along by the fact that Harry was exuding some of the same magic overflow that Aletha Freeman had displayed after her own incident with the same magical energy."

James Potter confirmed that Lily Potter had been pregnant at the time of her disappearance, but could offer no ideas on how this had occurred; simply stating that he had been fortunate enough to gain back even a small part of his wife and he was going to appreciate the son he had thought was lost.

His best friend Sirius Black told us that "anyone bothering James will be answering to my wand and I know some really embarrassing spells".

The disappearance of Lily Potter raised many questions and answered none of them. The appearance of her son, on the predicted due date raises even more. What happened to Lily Potter? Where is she now? How was Harry able to appear out of literally nowhere? Was Harry with Lily?

~*~

Saturday, August 2nd, 1980.

**Hestia Jones Resigns**

Hestia Jones signed her name to the letter and waved her wand, watching the letter roll up and seal itself with wax. She gave the letter to the owl, watching it fly away. When she could no longer see the owl, Hestia slumped against the wall, running a hand through her raven hair.

"I've done my bit for the war," she said, hearing the words ring hollow in her ears. No matter what Hestia said, the truth was that she was running away from the war. After three years of fighting against Voldemort as a member of the Order of the Phoenix, three years of seeing friends injured and killed, three years of just avoiding injury or death herself... Hestia was worn out.

She took one last look around her apartment before tapping her trunk. It shrunk into an anklet, which Hestia secured before Disapparating.

It would be a week before Hestia's landlord came to find the apartment deserted.

~*~

**Diagon Alley—Mad Jack's Portkey Palace**

"Where's the Portkey headed?"

"Doesn't matter," Hestia said, looking at the witch sitting behind the counter. "Just give me a portkey to anywhere." Hestia slid the moneybag across the counter along with her passport, watching the witch count out the Galleons and Sickles before waving her wand. A stack of paper hit the counter and the passport glowed.

"Just sign the top paper and give that back, please," the witch said. "You'll find your airline tickets and such in the remainder of that stack. You should keep it all for twenty-four hours before disposing of it. There should be no trouble within that time period, but if there is, the stack will resolve it. For problems beyond that time period, your visa and passport should resolve them. Your visa is with your passport. _Keep_ the visa, else you'll find yourself kicked back to England."

Hestia nodded, taking the stack of papers and replacing her passport in her pocket.

The witch handed her a feather. "Thank you and enjoy Amsterdam."

"Amster—!"

When Hestia regained her bearings, she found herself in a standard Portkey arrival area, attached to the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Unlike most arrival areas, there was no way out and a large screen that displayed the time and a countdown of six minutes. Hestia sat down and was soon joined by another Portkey arrival, a wizard she estimated to be in his late thirties.

"What's the countdown?" Hestia said, indicating the board which now read under a minute.

"Every fifteen minutes, the immigration officials come here to see who's arrived and take them for processing," the wizard said. And just as he had said, two officials Portkeyed in as the countdown ended. Hestia went with the witch, who whisked her through the required channels with ease.

"Um... where's the other guy that was in the room?" Hestia said.

"Getting processed," the witch said. "Amsterdam has the most famous red light district in the world and the last thing we want is some wizard preying on the Muggles via magical means. All magical arrivals arrive here, regardless of where in the Netherlands they're travelling to. All wizards have to attend a class on the Muggle sex industry to help prevent breaches of the Statue of Secrecy and have a magical tracer attached to them while they are in the country. Plus, there's about seven hours of forms to fill in. You wouldn't believe the amount of wizards who still try something. All of this costs Galleons: if they don't pay, they get sent back to where they came from. Your friend in there is probably going to end up paying about twenty thousand Galleons in the end. And that's not mentioning the exchange rates."

"What about the exchange rates?" Hestia said.

"Worldwide, there are two exchange rates of wizarding currency into Muggle Dutch currency," the witch said. "Females pay the base rate and males pay quadruple the base rate."

"How will he have anything else left for the exchange rate if he's paying twenty thousand Galleons just to get in?" Hestia said.

"He's been here before; he knows the ropes," the witch said. "Enjoy your stay."

~*~

Monday, August 4th, 1980.

**Amsterdam—De Wallen**

Hestia had been somewhat amused at the hoops a wizard had to jump through to visit Amsterdam, but was never more grateful for them as four Aurors Apparated into the street, their wands pointed at her. Their wands shifted to cover the body lying on her feet as they took in her trembling wand and pale face. One of the Aurors said something to her partners and came over to Hestia, who let herself be led along the road and escorted into a building.

They were given a small room and a pretty girl came in with a cup of tea for Hestia and a plate of biscuits, giving a nod to the Auror. Once Hestia had eaten a couple of biscuits, the Auror spoke.

"What happened?"

"I was just walking around here," Hestia said. "I suppose he thought I was a prostitute, going to my work. He cast a compulsion charm or the Imperius Curse, for all I know. He just wanted me to go with him for some 'fun'. I broke through the spell and stunned him before he could react and then you were there."

"We respond very fast to those kinds of attacks, providing they're initiated by a wizard who has a magical tracer," the Auror said.

"Where are we?" Hestia said.

"Wands and Heels," the Auror said. "Magical business. I'd suggest staying here a while; they'll be glad to take care of you. You've had a nasty shock."

With a crack, the Auror was gone. Hestia took another biscuit and just finished it when a girl entered the room.

"Hello," she said. "You are the girl the police brought here?" At Hestia's nod, she went on. "Come, let me take you to the girls' room."

As they walked along, Hestia noted the hallway had lush carpet, but bare, grey tiled walls. Then the girl opened a black door and Hestia stepped into what felt like a whole new world. The carpeting and the walls remained the same, but there had been use of an Expansion Charm, possible several times over. Hestia didn't know how else to explain the multitude of couches, a dozen fridges and fifteen doors scattered throughout the room, most of which had 'Bathroom' written on them.

"New girl?" someone said in the ensuing silence. "Metamorph, I assume. No way she's a Veela."

"That's a very... unassuming form for a Metamorph," someone else said.

"You're one to talk—besides, you know not everyone comes here looking for huge tits!"

Hestia blinked.

"She's not working here," her guide said. "She was attacked."

"Forgive me, but what _is_ here?" Hestia said.

"Wands and Heels," her guide said. "Otherwise known as the premier wizarding strip club and brothel. We are primarily known for hiring Veela and Metamorphs, though we do hire regular witches. Unlike many wizarding businesses, Muggles can see the business and do come here. This room is one of the few rooms in which we can freely perform magic, unless the client is known to have knowledge of the magical world."

Hestia nodded. "So you're all..." She broke off, realising that it was a stupid question. "But aren't you..." Hestia closed her mouth, shaking her head.

Her guide took Hestia to a chair, sitting next to her. "I'm Roxie," she said. "You are?"

"Hestia."

"Well, Hestia," Roxie said, "to answer your questions: yes, we are, and no, we're not." She looked around the room at the other girls. "It's a strange claim in Amsterdam, where many of the women working as prostitutes are forced into it for one reason or another—we've all seen them, we know they exist—but you won't find anyone here who doesn't freely choose to be."

"Well... if you're not being forced into it and aren't doing it because of bills or rent or some such," Hestia said, "why _are_ you doing it?"

"You understand about the money," Roxie said. There's also the power: the client wants you, so much that he'll pay to have you. We charge by the hour—and we charge a lot. And some of us just like sex, really."

"And how can you be so sure that the witches and such here aren't being Imperiused?" Hestia said.

Roxie smiled. "We couldn't be; it was just something we grew to have an instinct for," she said. "There was this girl in England who recently crafted a way of identifying and removing the Imperius Curse and since then, the standard procedure is to have the spell cast on us when we arrive, just to be sure."

Roxie looked at Hestia, raising an eyebrow at Hestia's pleased look. Putting it out of her mind, she stood up and escorted Hestia out of the building.

"Do you mind if I return?" Hestia said, once they had reached the exit.

"I guess not," Roxie said, watching Hestia leave.

~*~

**Amsterdam—Wands and Heels**

Hestia did return, though if asked she would not have been able to explain why. Part of it was that as a pureblood, she was more comfortable amongst the wizarding population of Amsterdam, but that was not the entire answer. She was more concerned with why they let her return, but even that seemed to become less and less important as the days passed.

After two weeks, Roxie came over to Hestia.

"You going to do something with those cards, or what?"

Hestia looked down at her deck of cards. "What do you want me to do?"

"Do you know how to play poker?" Roxie said.

"Uh... yes," Hestia said.

"Yeah, we thought so," Roxie said, levitating a case over to Hestia. "Go get a game started."

Hestia took a look inside the case, not at all surprised to find rows upon rows of poker chips. "What's in it for me?" she said.

Roxie tossed her a bag of Galleons, which Hestia judged to be about seven hundred by the weight. "You're the Wands and Heels representative. There's your bankroll. You win twelve Galleons, you get to keep five. You lose that seven hundred Galleons, you're out of a job."

"So I get fired if I don't do well?" Hestia said, her eyes narrowing.

"Yes, but only because we don't have a bankroll to give you," Roxie said. "And furthermore, say that you lose six hundred of it tonight and then win twelve hundred Galleons tomorrow. You've just won yourself five hundred Galleons."

Hestia raised an eyebrow. This offer of not having to replenish the bankroll before she got her cut was very tempting, but if they did it that way, someone would lose out eventually.

"If the bankroll's not being replenished from somewhere, I'll be out of a job sooner rather than later," Hestia said.

"True," Roxie said. "But I don't have an answer. Now go out and get a game started. I'll have an answer for you later. Go out into the stripping area; we've set up a table for you."

Hestia shook her head and headed out as instructed, only to be called back by Roxie.

"Um, honey... I think you need a change of clothes."

"What do you mean?" Hestia said.

Roxie waved her wand, changing Hestia's clothes into a pair of heels and a knee length red lace nightie. "Now you fit in, though it's not quite as racy as the rest of us."

Hestia rolled her eyes and went off.

~*~

Wednesday, November 5th, 1980.

**Amsterdam—Wands and Heels**

Hestia could then be found at the table every day, though business was more frequent in the evenings. Hestia knew how to play poker, but there was still a fair bit to learn here: she needed to win enough to make herself a profit, but she also had to lose with the right frequency to keep people coming back, without looking like she was an incompetent dealer.

"All this work, just to balance out two simple facts of human nature," Hestia said, shaking her head.

"You sound annoyed," said Trixie.

"I am," Hestia said. "People play poker with the expectation they'll win—if they do not win, they'll stop, even if that's only once they've reached a limit they've set themselves that they can 'safely' lose. That's assuming they do not convince themselves that their luck will turn around, that they're just getting screwed right now and they can win if they keep playing."

"'Safely' lose?" Trixie said.

"The concept of leaving after 'I've won/lost thirty Galleons tonight' is Hippogriff manure. It does nothing to minimise losses or maximise wins," Hestia said. "If the game is good, stay in it if you're winning. If the game is bad, get out of it."

Trixie nodded and rifled through her locker.

"And that second fact," Hestia said, "is that when one person is winning a lot—if not all—of the time, people won't play with that person anymore. They'll find a game where their chances of winning seem much more even."

"You're not happy here, are you?" Trixie said.

Hestia shook her head. "It's nice enough and everyone's good, but if I'm going to play poker for a living, I can't stay here. But I don't know where to go from here."

"I can get you to Las Vegas," Trixie said. "But it'll cost you. And it might not happen for a while."

"Anything," Hestia said.

Trixie fixed Hestia with a look. "Come on, then, let's go shopping."

~*~

Saturday, March 7th, 1981.

**Amsterdam Airport Schiphol—Portkey Exit Area**

"Thanks, Roxie, Trix," Hestia said.

"It's been no trouble," Trixie said, leaning in and kissing Hestia's cheek. "Just remember, you've always got a home here."

"I'll remember," Hestia said.

"Good," Roxie said. She handed Hestia a letter. "That should help you find a job; I know you want to make a living playing poker, but you'll need a job before you can delve into that side of things, right?"

"Yeah," Hestia said, hugging Roxie. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Roxie said. "You have your stuff?"

Hestia checked her anklet and then nodded. "Goodbye," she said, closing her eyes and activating the Portkey.

Vegas awaited.

~*~

Daily Prophet, Monday 2 November 1981  
THE BOY-WHO-APPEARED NOW THE BOY-WHO-LIVED!  
DEATH EATERS CAPTURED!  
By Rita Skeeter, Special Reporter

In a series of events that startled the wizarding world just two scant days ago, You-Know-Who was vanquished by little Harry Potter.

From the information we have been able to gather, James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin had decided to spend October 31st in Diagon Alley, with Harry Potter. What should have been a calm outing turned sour just a quarter after two in the afternoon, when You-Know-Who, along with several of his Death Eaters began an attack on Diagon Alley. Aurors were called immediately, responding within minutes.

They got there in time to see You-Know-Who cast the Killing Curse on James Potter. As a result, Harry was dropped to the ground, where he began crying. You-Know-Who then cast the Killing Curse on Harry Potter, "as though he was some annoying bug", eyewitnesses later said. Eyewitnesses also say that the green light of the Killing Curse hit Harry on the forehead, glowing white before it rebounded on You-Know-Who and killed him.

Harry Potter was left with nothing more than a lightning bolt scar.

Everyone in Diagon Alley was shocked, but none more so than the present Death Eaters, all of whom were rounded up by the Aurors. A full article on this can be found on page four.

There is only one question and unfortunately, as with his appearance and his mother's disappearance, there are no answers, either in whole or part. How is it possible that You-Know-Who could kill so many witches and wizards and yet find his doom in a fifteen-month old child?

At the present moment, no one knows where Harry Potter is—Sirius Black asserted his right as Harry's godfather to take him away from the commotion of celebration that inevitably started as the last Death Eater was taken away to Azkaban. The Ministry is holding a mail collection for Harry, as within the hour of the defeat of You-Know-Who, mail started flooding in for the young hero.

~*~

Friday, November 6th, 1981.

**London, near Grimmauld Place**

The woman hurried along the streets, a cloak pulled tightly around her head to hide her face. She knew all too well what had been happening since the defeat of the Dark Lord—the Death Eaters were claiming Imperius and ignorance of whom other Death Eaters had been. Although, of the Death Eaters captured—Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Rabastan and Barty Crouch Jr.—only Lucius and the male Lestranges seemed likely to get away with it.

_Bellatrix is much too insane and the Crouch boy is hardly any better—his protestations of innocence are highly overwrought,_ the woman thought as she crossed into the property line of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Summoning up her courage, she knocked on the door, not even blinking as it was opened by Remus Lupin.

"I, Narcissa Black Malfoy, do so wish to speak with my cousin, Sirius Black," Narcissa said, her words formal but cold. "I invoke my right as a member of the House of Black to see Lord Black, the Head of the Black House."

"Your wand," Remus said, not that he expected her to give it up. He hid his surprise when she gave it with no complaint and led her into the sitting room. "Wait here."

~*~

**Narcissa Makes Her Choice**

"You let her in?" Sirius said, looking incredulous.

"She has surrendered her wand," Remus said. "She also invoked her rights as a member of the House of Black. By her own words, she cannot cause harm to anyone in this dwelling by either direct or indirect means. I might also remind you that she cannot falsely represent herself whilst she has invoked those rights."

Sirius conceded the point and handed Harry to Remus. "Come with me, then."

Narcissa rose as Sirius entered the sitting room. "Lord Black, I greet you."

"Narcissa Black Malfoy, I greet you," Sirius said. "What business do you have with me, the Head of the House of Black?"

"I have much business, my lord. But before we speak of it, I would address a personal matter—a debt that I have owed and not yet repaid."

"Was this debt owed to me, or to the House Head?"

"I owed it to you, my lord."

Remus translated the Marauder sign-language—a fist, the thumb inside, then transferred out: what the hell is this person talking about?—that Sirius made and gave a mental chuckle.

"Go on."

"Once, when we were at school together, I stated my opinion that love was a fiction and a folly and that no truly strong or pure wizard would allow himself to be tainted by it. You took exception to this and we would have duelled, had we not been restrained by others."

Narcissa looked down at her hands before looking Sirius in the eye. "My lord, I wish to apologise. I was wrong."

Remus saw the next sign—a fully open hand and then the thumb and little finger touched together: this is one for the record books—and in laughing at it, almost missed Sirius' reply.

"Apology accepted. I would ask, though, what brought about your change of heart."

"I never expected a child to change me, my lord," Narcissa said, her voice soft, almost dreamlike. "My mother told me about the process, of course. She warned me about both the pain and the emotion that came with childbirth. I was prepared for the pain. For the emotion, I was not." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "I was unprepared, as I say, for the... feeling which came to me on the birth of my son. I would have given my life for him. I would have done anything for him. My lord, gradually I began to realize that others felt this way as well... and that the feeling had a name, and that name was love."

She laughed, though there was no humour in it. "I tried to deny it, then to fight it, but it was too late. I loved my son, my lord. And nothing in the world or beyond it could change that. Soon after I discovered this, the Dark Lord fell." Her eyes flickered once to Harry—to Harry's scar.

"What of his fall?" Sirius said.

Narcissa hesitated, but drew back her left sleeve, exposing the Dark Mark—a skull with a serpent issuing from its mouth. It was much faded even now and would no doubt fade more, but it was plain enough.

"Some of my fraternity were captured, Lord Black. They will no doubt try to escape their deserved punishment."

"You propose to do something," Sirius said. It was neither statement nor question, but a blend of the two.

"I know the names of all the Death Eaters and much of their crimes," Narcissa said. "It is my intent to turn them all in—myself included—to face the judgement we deserve for what we have done."

"You felt it was necessary to inform me of this," Sirius said, his tone still the same.

"I cannot pretend that I will escape Azkaban," Narcissa said. "All that is left to me is my son, Draco. I ask you, Lord Black, to _take my son_. Give Draco your name—_our_ name—and make the house of Black great again."

Sirius looked at Narcissa, his demeanour changing. "Is that all you ask of your Head?" he said.

"It is."

"Have you spoken the truth before your Head?"

"I have."

"I will help you, Narcissa," Sirius said. "Your words have spoken to me of a desire to make reparations for the wrongs you have committed. Therefore, I offer you this. If you will speak out against the members of your fraternity, admit to your own crimes and allow me to revoke your marriage to Lucius Malfoy, I will use my influence on the Wizengamot to help you avoid Azkaban."

To her credit, Narcissa Black Malfoy showed no surprise. If her marriage was revoked, she would become a ward of the House of Black. As the Head of House, Sirius would be able to restrict the usage of her wand, restrict her money... really, she would be no better than a house-elf, if he so wished it. She would have no power or recourse to stop him.

"I accept your terms, Lord Black," Narcissa said. "If I may ask, when will my marriage contract be revoked?"

"I can do it now," Sirius said.

"Wait," Remus said. "Wait until Lucius is in Azkaban. If you revoke it now, Lucius will know."

"He's right," Narcissa said. "Although he is detained, he is not officially a criminal. There would be a formal notification sent to him if Lord Black did it now."

"He'd learn about it at some point, but if he's in Azkaban, that could take a while," said Remus.

"Come on, Narcissa," Sirius said. "Let's go see Crouch."

~*~

**The Ministry of Magic—Bartemius Crouch Senior's Office**

Bartemius Crouch, Senior was having a week that he would have described as a really good week—You-Know-Who was defeated and they had five Death Eaters captured—had it not been for the fact that one of the said Death Eaters was his own son. When Sirius arrived and wanted to talk to him about 'unspecified issues', he was somewhat glad of it. Crouch hoped that he could avoid having to think about the troubles the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was encountering with said Death Eaters.

A hope that seemed crushed when Sirius Black and Narcissa Malfoy came into his office.

"Good afternoon," Sirius and Narcissa said.

"Good afternoon. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Crouch said.

"You currently have five Death Eaters in custody, some of which may get off," Sirius said. "You must know there were more than five Death Eaters. I doubt that the Death Eaters you've got are all that willing to cough up names and crimes."

"They're not," Crouch said. "We have them in custody. Mark my words, Black, we _will_ find them guilty."

"I can make that process a lot faster and easier for you," Sirius said, cutting straight to the point.

"And what do you want from me, Black?"

Sirius gathered his thoughts before gazing at Crouch, his gaze level. "Ideally, I want a complete pardon for my informant. If that isn't possible, my informant will be willing to be subject to restrictions such as being tracked, having their magic monitored, an Anti-Apparation anklet... as long as the restrictions aren't unfair or extreme, my informant will not complain."

"Anything to avoid Azkaban, Black?"

"Anything to continue being a parent," Sirius said. "Anonymity is requested as well."

Crouch looked at Sirius. He hadn't failed to notice that Narcissa had not said a word since greeting him. Putting the pieces together, he smiled.

"I think we can come to an agreement," Crouch said. "Your informant will be anonymous. The list of restrictions shall be as follows: a tracking and Anti-Apparation anklet; an approved escort when leaving their residence, which the Ministry will be informed of. If leaving the country or moving residences, the Ministry must be informed six weeks previously of this. The date of return to England will also be filed with the Ministry. If your informant casts even _one_ Dark Spell or entices others to the Dark, the Kiss will be administered. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes," Sirius said.

Crouch nodded, turning to look at Narcissa. "Then please, tell me all you know, Narcissa."

Narcissa took a deep breath and began. It took many hours—to the point where Narcissa had no voice left—to name the Death Eaters and link them to murders, rapes, kidnappings, cases of the Cruciatus and Imperius curses, robberies... the list was longer than either of the men expected and the name of Peter Pettigrew shocked them both. It was what Crouch needed, though. The Death Eaters would pay for their crimes.

When Narcissa fell silent, exhausted of both information and strength, Sirius looked at her. Narcissa shook her head. The restrictions upon Narcissa Malfoy, soon to be Narcissa Black had been processed and activated as she gave her testimony.

"I believe we're done here," Sirius said. "You have the information. I'll take Narcissa to get a potion for her throat and we can go home."

With that, Sirius and Narcissa were gone, leaving Crouch to start forming his plans to round up the Death Eaters and confiscate their properties.

~*~

**Sirius and Narcissa Reach An Understanding**

"What now, my lord?" Narcissa said as they left the Ministry.

"I am going to be visiting Aletha Freeman," Sirius said. "You may return to Grimmauld Place or to your Manor, to attend to your son. On that note, Narcissa, this is your one and only warning. Your pureblooded superiority crap ends now. I remember you as a child and a teenager—you were much more in line with Andromeda with your thinking, before our parents made you conform to their will. I want that Narcissa back. I will not stand for the crap."

"How about sitting for it?"

Sirius looked at Narcissa. She looked back with a blank expression, however, after a couple of seconds, she was smiling, a mischievous look on her face.

"Narcissa..." Sirius said, shaking his head. "That was terrible."

"My apologies, my lord." Narcissa said, the smile still on her face, before looking at Sirius. "I understand and submit to your terms."

"What are your plans?"

"I believe I will return to Malfoy Manor and take care of my son," Narcissa said. "May I bring him to Grimmauld Place?"

"Of course, Narcissa."

~*~

**Aletha Joins Sirius**

Aletha waved her wand, setting the dishes to wash. A few more waves of her wand and her place was cleaned up, the boxes piled up against the wall, containing everything she owned. Now that she was ready to await Sirius, her thoughts wandered over to him as they often had in the past months. Ever since the loss of her memories, he had been there for her, helping her as she adjusted. Healers had discovered that there was a white haze in her mind, which they postulated as the reason for her loss of memories. With Sirius' help, she had managed to recover some memories, but most stayed hidden behind the white haze.

Aletha twisted the ring on her finger.

Not that any of that had mattered to Sirius. He'd proposed to her only three weeks ago. A little 'pop!' signified Sirius' arrival and before Sirius could move, Aletha had him bound in ropes.

"I thought I told you: I live in a Muggle area. You will arrive and depart like a Muggle."

"Um... oops?"

"Before you go, how's Harry?"

"He's fine."

Aletha released the ropes and Sirius Disapparated.

Ten minutes later, Sirius knocked on the door.

Aletha opened the door and greeted Sirius with a kiss.

"How are you?"

"I'm getting sick of my mother's house. I've ordered Kreacher to stay in his room—not that he pays attention half the time—but he's still a pain in the..." Sirius said, trailing off as he saw Aletha's warning look. "I'm thinking of moving. I just don't really know where we'd go. It's not like we'd have any privacy."

"Why not go into the Muggle world?" Aletha said.

"The Muggle world?"

"Well, if you won't have any privacy living within the Wizarding World, why not disappear into the Muggle world? No one would know you were there."

Sirius nodded, thinking about the idea. They would be six people. Four of them could use magic—any dwelling they found could easily be charmed to give much more space than it would at first appear. There was a bonus in the fact that no one would expect them to make this move. It would afford protection of a kind—after all, he had been hiding in his mother's house to avoid the general wizarding populace.

His eyes focused suddenly on Aletha's boxes.

"Letha?" Sirius said, confused. "Why is everything packed up?"

"Take me with you when you leave tonight," Aletha said.

"Why?"

"We're getting married, Sirius."

"I thought you planned to stay here until we were married."

"Plans change. It's a woman's prerogative."

~*~

**Grief**

That night, at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, the last of the Marauders were nowhere to be seen. They had retreated into a room to grieve together, for one of their own was dead and the other was good as dead, having betrayed what the Marauders stood for by joining Voldemort.

~*~

Saturday, November 7th, 1981.

**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—The Great Hall**

An owl fluttered down to Snape as he ate breakfast. Opening it, he frowned.

"Severus?" Albus said.

"A summons to the Ministry," Snape said. "From Crouch Senior."

"What about?" Albus said. He was worried—Crouch's position as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had given him quite a bit of leeway during the war and where Death Eaters were concerned, Crouch had no sympathy or compassion.

Snape made an indistinct noise in his throat.

"I will come with you," Albus said.

"He expects me in half an hour," Snape said. "I will get ready."

~*~

**Between A Rock and A Hard Place**

"Professor Dumbledore, Severus Snape," Crouch said. Although he did not show it, he was pleased that Albus had turned up—Snape was Albus' pet, after all.

"Bartemius," Albus said, conjuring seats for himself and Severus.

Snape nodded, but did not speak.

"Severus Snape," Crouch said. "Were you a Death Eater in service of You-Know-Who?"

_So it is finally over,_ Snape thought. "Yes, I was."

"What were your services for You-Know-Who?"

"I brewed potions for the Dark Lord and worked on magical theory. I was also ordered to partake in raids and revels, though my dislike of such things was well known and I was more often than not excused from joining them."

Crouch nodded; that confirmed what Narcissa had said. "I have it on record that you performed several Unforgivables from the period of February 1980 to October thirty-first, 1981. Do you deny this?"

"I cannot deny it," Snape said, his tone calm, though his body was tense.

Albus cleared his throat. "Those accusations are true, Bartemius. However, long before Lord Voldemort's downfall, Severus came to me and repented, turning spy for us, at great risk to himself." Albus ignored Crouch's distaste for the name 'Voldemort' and went on. "The use of Unforgivables is easy to explain. Voldemort's servants were expected to know them. Severus could not refuse to use them, else he would have been found out."

Crouch smiled. Sirius had confirmed that Snape was a spy and the relative time period. "And when did he come to you, Professor Dumbledore?"

"January twenty-eighth, 1980."

The trap was set and Crouch smiled again. "Very well. The Unforgivables will not form part of his record, seeing as they were performed as part of being a spy for the Light."

Albus looked very relieved, as did Snape.

"However, I have it on record that before that date, Severus Snape had used the Killing Curse and the Cruciatus Curse on multiple occasions dating from June 1977 to January twenty-eighth, 1980. As you know, the use of an Unforgivable carries with it an automatic life sentence in Azkaban. There is no excuse or pardon for the Unforgivables performed in this time period."

Both Albus and Snape looked dumbstruck.

~*~

Monday, November 9th, 1981.

**The First Prophecy**

The young woman was curled up in bed, images flashing around her mind as she dreamt. A voice was speaking, the words resonating.

_Unearthly storm changed all you knew,  
For darkness comes, one more than two.  
Be wary of the storied year,  
Though answers come, there is much fear.  
She will not come home, though you ask,  
Accept it, for she has her task.  
Even so, do not lose sight of home,  
For without check, evil still does roam.  
War converges—ally as one,  
The Phoenix and the Meledon.  
Look within for way of defeat,  
Victory comes, it's bittersweet.  
Then has the age of hope begun,  
And peace comes to all those who won._

As soon as the voiced ceased, she woke up. Reaching out, she grabbed a pen and pad, writing down the lines that echoed in her brain.

"What does it mean?" she said, frowning as she finished the last lines, feeling it leave her head. "And why do I have to know it?"

She closed her eyes, letting the images from the dream wash over her. Images of people, none of whom she knew. Some of them were magic and some of them weren't. The kaleidoscope shifted and changed into a movie reel and she watched as a storm blew up, trapping two young women in its midst.

With a gasp, she opened her eyes, breaking the movie reel. She had seen these things before—she did not want to see it again.

A cry from the other room had her bolting out of bed to attend to her baby sister.

Once her sister was set up at the breakfast table with a fresh diaper and a box of cereal, the young woman took stock of her situation.

Her sister needed new diapers; new clothes and they both needed food.

She had all of a hundred dollars to achieve this. The past two months had been hard—her parents had been murdered back in the middle of August. Since then, she'd seen more money go out than in, though that had slowly changed once she had gotten a job.

"Which still doesn't help me," she said. "Neenie needs food and diapers _now_, not this bloody Friday."

She looked at Neenie, who grinned and threw cereal at the wall.

"Come on, Neenie," she said—she knew by the time Neenie started throwing her cereal around that she'd eaten as much as she was going to—"let's go shopping."

~*~

Many people have speculated on whether or not fate is real and if fate is real, is she an actual being and if so, what is her mailing address?

After all, there are many reasons why people say fate's a bitch...

~*~

**Werewolf and Dreamer**

"We need diapers," Remus said. "With Draco, our supply got used up faster than expected."

"Why not conjure more?" Narcissa said.

"No, Lily always said that buying them was better for the baby," Sirius said.

Remus nodded. "She did. And I guess that means it's me who'll go out buying supplies—Aletha and I are the only ones with experience in the Muggle world."

"And I'm working today, so have fun, Remus," Aletha said.

With a nod, Remus accepted the money from Sirius and Disapparated. He found himself in an alleyway that was only a couple of blocks from a Muggle supermarket—if he could trust his memory. Not having been here for several months, Remus took a guess and turned left, segueing into the stream of people heading in the same direction. Some twenty minutes later, he was forced to conclude that he had gone in the wrong direction.

As he turned around, he caught sight of a young woman with curly brown hair, almost far too much for one person. Then a mass of the hair moved and Remus caught sight of an infant's face, tear-stained and red.

"Oh, Neenie, I _know_ you're hungry," the woman—her mother?—said. "I knew you hadn't eaten enough cereal. But I don't _have_ any food right now. Please, Neenie, please calm down... Danger can't go shopping with you crying."

Neenie wailed again. She wanted a proper breakfast and wasn't going to stop crying until she got it.

_Well, this Danger's in a catch-22,_ Remus thought. Not exactly sure why he was doing this, he made his way over to Danger and tapped her shoulder.

"Excuse me, Miss. Would you and the little miss like to join me for breakfast?"

Danger turned around and simply stared at Remus.

"I married you last night," she whispered.

"_What?_"

Her eyes went very round. "Oh my Lord. Oh my Lord, I did _not_ just say that out loud. I did _not_. I did _not_. I did, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did."

"Oh my Lord. I'm so sorry. What a way to start a conversation. Please, can we start over?"

"Certainly. I was just wondering if you and the little miss would like to join me for breakfast."

Danger considered Neenie and then the street. No one was around—_so they didn't see you making a fool of yourself, Danger_—but perhaps it would be best to get more privacy than a street afforded.

She chuckled and looked back at Remus. "Please. Neenie here has been quite the handful."

They procured a booth at a pancake eatery and after they were served, Remus discreetly cast a spell to ensure their conversation was private.

"I'm sorry, but I've just realised I don't even know your name," Remus said.

"Call me Danger. It's my nickname, I answer to it faster than anything else," Danger said. "You know Neenie."

"Nicknames? Then I'm Moony," Remus said.

Danger smiled, helping Neenie with her pancakes before looking at Remus. "I need to ask something and I need you to tell me the truth."

Her gaze pinned Remus with its intensity and Remus gestured for her to go on.

"Is magic real? Because I dreamed of magic when I dreamed of you—and of other things, too. You're real and here in front of me."

Remus didn't speak, though he never looked away. It was against the law, but there was so much pain in her face. That, in the end, was what decided him.

"Yes," he said. "It's real."

"Thank God," Danger said, her breath expelling in one long release. "There was no other explanation."

"For what?"

Her eyes closed for a moment. "I was at school. I went to get Neenie from day care, then I went home. And there were my parents, lying in the living room, dead. They had these expressions on their faces..." She broke off. "I can't describe it."

But Remus could. "It was pain. They died in pain. Cruciated, then hit with the Killing Curse."

It was blunt, but she deserved to know—and judging by the look on her face, _needed_ to know how her parents had died in order that she might find closure.

"Yes." Danger's voice choked. "They never did anything wrong. Why them? _Why_?"

Remus ignored his pancakes; he'd not wanted them in the first place. "A little more than a week ago, the leader was defeated. You say you dreamed of more than just our wedding; perhaps you dreamed of an alley and a green curse rebounding from a child?"

"I have dreamed that, yes," Danger said.

"We call non-magical people Muggles. The leader promulgated the eradication of Muggles, as they were not magical," Remus said. "There are those who fight against him and his followers—I am one of them. Was, really. It's all over now, of course. Please believe me when I say that I wish I could have stopped them."

Danger looked back at him and nodded. When she spoke, her tone was decisive. "I believe you. Thank you. So, after that, I got custody of Neenie, I got a job and life went on. Things are dicey, as I'm sure you've figured. We survive—my parents were professionals and the money they saved up helps us out—but I've had moments like today when I'm clear out of food and Neenie wants it _now_ far too often."

Remus nodded, squeezing her hand sympathetically.

She smiled, looking grateful. "I started dreaming the night my parents were murdered. Images, words and then... last night, a story and as crazy as it sounds, what I believe is a prophecy."

"Our wedding?"

Danger nodded. "Our wedding. I was the bride, not that I knew anyone except my maid of honor. That would be my best friend when I was little, her name was Aletha—"

"Aletha Freeman?" Remus said—Aletha wasn't that common a name in his limited experience.

Danger's eyes went wide. "Yes. Is she a witch as well?"

"She's a witch. I know her well," Remus said. "I'm living with her and my best friend Sirius—they're engaged."

"So I got the altar, looked at the groom and it was you," Danger said. "I was so happy to see you that I forgot I didn't know anything about you—and suddenly I did know all about you."

"Not everything?"

"Oh, no, I knew everything. Like why you don't hold down a job for very long, in either of our worlds, because of your being 'away' for a couple of days per month."

"I'm surprised you came to breakfast with me."

"Not everyone's a bigot," Danger said. "I know you're a good man."

She had intended the statement to be light, but it hung over the table, carrying far too much meaning and emotion than would have normally been appropriate. Yet neither seemed too bothered by it.

"Do you believe me?" Danger said after a few more minutes of silence.

"You said you knew everything," Remus said, evading the question. Danger nodded. "How do you activate the Marauder's Map?"

"You touch your wand to it and utter the phrase, 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good'," Danger said. "'Mischief managed' deactivates it. You lost the map in your seventh year at Hogwarts. Good enough, Remus John Lupin?"

Remus nodded, too stunned to articulate, but he deactivated the privacy spell. "I think you and Neenie should come with me to see my friends."

Danger nodded. "Mind if I do the shopping first? I have a feeling that meeting your friends might take up all of my free time." She paused, smiling. "For when we meet your friends: Gertrude Kelly Granger and Hermione Jean Granger."

~*~

**Number 12 Grimmauld Place**

"Took you bloody—who the hell is that?" Sirius said as Remus, Danger and Hermione arrived by Portkey.

His answer was forestalled by the arrival of Kreacher, who took one look at Danger and spoke. "Master lets the Muggle filth into Mistress' noble home."

"My lord, may I?" Narcissa said before Sirius could explode—Kreacher's attitude had been grating on Sirius since he entered Grimmauld Place. At Sirius' terse nod, Narcissa spoke to Kreacher. "Kreacher, go to Malfoy Manor and report to the head elf there."

Kreacher made a face, but disappeared.

"Good riddance," Sirius said. "But now we have no house elf."

"And we had one when Kreacher was here, Sirius?" Narcissa said.

"Granted," Sirius said. He turned to Danger and Remus. "My apologies."

"Sirius Black, Narcissa, meet Danger Granger and her sister, Hermione," Remus said, dumping the bags to the floor. "We need to have a meeting."

"You didn't tell me the Portkey would be like that," Danger said, shelving her questions for the moment.

"You brought a Muggle here?" Narcissa said. "What about the secrecy laws?"

"She's not like other Muggles, Narcissa," Remus said.

Danger eyed Narcissa and spoke up. "_She_ is perfectly capable of speaking for herself. I have prophetic dreams."

Everyone in the room shut up.

"Thought that would get your attention," Danger said with a smirk. "Is there a place I can put Neenie?"

Narcissa nodded and took Danger to the room off the living room that had been designated as the playroom for Harry and Draco. The four of them met up in the living room, observing each other.

"So... if you three are wizards and witches, how about giving me a crash course in your world?" Danger said. "And what was that house elf thing?"

She wasn't disappointed—in the next two hours, Danger received a basic grounding in magic, the wizarding world and its culture.

"You'll need to know more," Narcissa said, "but you should not be quite so lost for now. You said you have prophetic dreams?" At Danger's nod, Narcissa continued. "We will have to test this, but I think you may have magic yourself." Narcissa extracted her wand from where she kept it and handed it over. "Test it."

Danger waved it, with no results. Handing it back, she took Sirius' outstretched wand and waved it, producing nothing.

"Third time lucky?" Remus said, offering his own wand.

Danger waved it. A burst of golden sparks flew from the tip, leaving Danger stunned.

"You are magical," Narcissa said. "Unsurprising, given that you are a true-dreamer; that is, you see things in your dreams that really happened. And some, as you say, are prophetic, giving a glimpse of the future. That is a magical gift. Perhaps you would care to fill us in?"

Danger gave a weak smile, but filled Sirius and Narcissa in on what she had shared with Remus.

Silence fell once Danger had finished talking, which she broke.

"That said, I don't understand how I can be magical. I never got a letter to Hogwarts."

"You're magical," Sirius said with authority. "You proved that by using Remus' wand. There is a theory of latent magic—magic that is undetectable because it isn't active. It would take some kind of shock to activate that magic such as..."

Remus elbowed Sirius into silence, but Danger picked up the thought.

"Finding your parents dead in the living room?"

Her only answer was a sort of embarrassed silence.

"When I found my dad and mum, I screamed. I screamed so loud they heard me on the next block. And things broke. All the light bulbs, all our glass lampshades, even the glass in the windows shattered. Was that magic?"

"Yes," Sirius said. "Accidental, but magic all the same."

Danger was rescued from having to answer by crying coming from the other room and soon, Narcissa had Draco, Danger had Hermione and Sirius had Harry as they calmed their charges down.

"You say you dreamed a prophecy?" Remus said when the children were calmed.

"Last night, I did," Danger said. "Let's see..." She scrabbled in her pockets, pulling out the pad where she'd written it down and read it out.

_Unearthly storm changed all you knew,  
For darkness comes, one more than two.  
Be wary of the storied year,  
Though answers come, there is much fear.  
She will not come home, though you ask,  
Accept it, for she has her task.  
Even so, do not lose sight of home,  
For without check, evil still does roam.  
War converges—ally as one,  
The Phoenix and the Meledon.  
Look within for way of defeat,  
Victory comes, it's bittersweet.  
Then has the age of hope begun,  
And peace comes to all those who won._

The room was silent as they processed the words.

"That makes no sense whatsoever," Narcissa said.

"You didn't take Divination," Sirius said.

"And now you see why. Divination is very imprecise."

Remus had taken the pad, looking over it. "A lot of it makes a certain amount of sense, but it's not enough because we have no meaning behind the words."

"How does it make sense?" Danger said.

"Fifth line, 'she will not come home, though you ask'. That's straightforward and easy enough, but who is this she referenced?"

"Point, Remus," Sirius said. "So we need to know more. And finding out more is going to be hard. It's not like we can walk up to people and just ask: are you the she we need to find?"

"As amusing as that image is, it doesn't help us," Narcissa said. "Besides, I think I know what the first two lines mean."

The others looked at her.

"The unearthly storm refers to the Storm of Diagon Alley," Narcissa said. "And darkness is coming... I think in three periods."

"But we've just had a period of darkness," Sirius said.

"Yes," Narcissa said. "However, the lines say—or at least imply—that three periods of darkness are coming, therefore the one we just had doesn't count."

Sirius conceded that. "And we're not to lose sight of home? Why would we? And what evil roams? The Death Eaters are all in Azkaban. Crouch acted with swift judgment on Narcissa's information. Every single last one of them is locked up."

There was silence. "We'll have to wait," Remus said at last. "We need more information."

"Then let's leave it aside and get lunch," Danger said, feeling her stomach growl.

~*~

**Narcissa Educates Danger**

Danger observed Narcissa as she alternated between feeding herself and feeding Hermione. The woman interested her—Narcissa seemed to be friends with both Remus and Sirius, with a particular deference to Sirius, but there was a sense of a higher culture emanating from her, as though she was better than all of them. It was, in a word, confusing for Danger.

Narcissa would have to have been blind to miss the looks that Danger gave her. Therefore, when lunch was over, she rose gracefully from the table and nodded at Danger.

"Please come," she said. "You have questions that I should answer."

Blushing, Danger followed Narcissa into the living room.

Narcissa took a seat, waited for Danger to follow suit and then spoke. "You wish to understand why both Sirius and I are purebloods, yet I act differently to him. You also wish to understand why I am friends with Sirius, yet accord him deference. And you also wonder how I can have contributed to the defeat of the Dark Lord and his followers."

"Yes, that would sum it up," Danger said.

"You recall what we said on the blood status within our world, yes?"

"Muggles; Squibs; Muggleborn; half-bloods; purebloods."

"Purebloods form the basis from which all other magical people come from," Narcissa said. "There are traditions, rules, expectations and more formed by the culture and society of purebloods that must be adhered to. I was brought up in these traditions, as was Sirius. The difference is that he rebelled against all that he was taught, I did not."

"How do purebloods form the basis of all magical people?" Danger said.

"Magic had to come from somewhere," Narcissa said. "What many of the purebloods try to ignore is that before the point in history that we accept as the end of where purity of blood can be traced to, somewhere in the mess of ancestors are Muggles who gained magic."

"So purebloods don't like those who aren't pure?" Danger said. Remus had spoken of it, but she'd thought that was only unique to this Dark Lord person.

"There is a split in the pureblood faction," Narcissa said. "Some couldn't care less about your blood, it's the attitudes and your abilities they value more. For some, blood is all—if you are pureblooded, that makes you automatically superior in every way to a half-blood or a Muggleborn, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. In some cases, there is quite a lot of evidence."

"Where do you fall?"

"When I was a child, it mattered not to me. The Blacks, however, were a family aligned to the Dark and to them, blood was all. As I grew, I fell in with what they taught me—it was expected I would," Narcissa said. "Much changed when Draco was born, for I learned of love. For love of my son, I turned against the Death Eaters who had been my comrades."

Danger blinked and Narcissa pushed up her sleeve, exposing the Dark Mark. "I was one of them and I would have turned myself in with them," she said, covering her arm when Danger looked back up to her. "Sirius has given me a chance to come away from the poison my family created, the mistake that I made and bring the House of Black to greatness again."

Danger nodded thoughtfully. "The House of Black?"

"At the point in history—some three millennia ago—that we begin to trace blood purity, there was the Convocation. Magic was very much widespread through the people then, so you can imagine how many magical people turned up for this. It was they who declared all magical people pureblooded. During that convocation, eleven distinct groups formed into a body we know today as the Eleven Pureblood Houses."

Danger nodded.

"If a House was wiped out, a new House would replace it. Therefore, all pureblood families observed and copied the way the Eleven Houses functioned, but with a noted difference: Sirius Black is Lord Black, Head of the House of Black, as the Black Family comprises one of the Eleven Houses. If it did not, he would just be Lord Black, Head of the Black Family."

"So what does a Head do?"

"They run the family. One thing of relevance that they have power over is marriage contracts—actually, I should remind Sirius to cancel my contract now that Lucius is in Azkaban. That's the wizarding prison," Narcissa said, noticing Danger's blank look. "With my contract cancelled, I am Sirius' ward and he has power over me."

"Power?"

"To use a distinction you will understand, if Lord Black wished it, I would be no better than one of the slaves Muggles used to have," Narcissa said, her words and tone blunt. "Thankfully, all he has demanded of me so far is that I leave my 'pureblooded superiority crap' behind, something that I am perfectly willing to do as it will allow me to stay with my son. As my Head of House, I owe him deference and respect, even if he allows me to be his friend, like Remus. Now, does that answer all your questions that you have been too polite to ask and yet conveyed with every look at me?"

Danger assimilated the last pieces of information and blushed. Narcissa laughed.

"I think we will be good friends, Danger."

~*~

Wednesday, November 11th, 1981.

**Number 12 Grimmauld Place—The Second Prophecy**

"The full moon is tonight," Sirius said as they finished dinner.

"Tonight?" Danger said. After Monday, she'd been issued a permanent invitation to visit them anytime and given the food situation she'd found herself in, Danger felt only a little guilt in turning up around mealtimes. It also provided ample opportunities to catch up with Aletha, which could only be a bonus. "How do you know?"

"I always know," Sirius said. "You don't spend seven years in a dorm with Remus and not learn how to know what phase the moon is in."

"Is there a safe place here for him?" Aletha said.

"There can be," Narcissa said. "The Dark Lord had a werewolf in his service—"

"Greyback," Remus said, baring his teeth.

"Indeed," Narcissa said. "There were times when the Dark Lord had a need to contain Greyback. I was one of those would be called on to cast the spells to contain him."

"What do the spells do?" Remus said.

"Creates a ward of some type," Narcissa said. "Any non-human can pass into it, but not out of it."

"Is it Dark?" Sirius said.

Narcissa shrugged. "It's old, comes from the Malfoy libraries and requires a lot of power to cast. What do you think the Ministry would classify it as if they knew it even existed?"

"...Dark," Aletha, Sirius and Remus said.

"We'll clear out a room, cast the ward and it should be fine," said Narcissa.

Danger set down her fork, feeling strange.

_See, by her touch his mind is whole,  
Balance reliance on her role,  
For she alone is not the way,  
The star too, must with the wolf play.  
With once enemy, answers lie,  
But on him you should not rely._

When it had passed, she looked back up at the table, all of whom were staring at her.

"What?"

"You gave another prophecy. Guess we'll need to get used to that if we're keeping you around," Sirius said.

Remus passed her over the pad and she read the prophecy, raising an eyebrow.

"Sirius," Aletha said, her tone dangerous, "is there something you want to tell me about playing with werewolves?"

Sirius sighed and moved away from the table before disappearing. Danger blinked, Narcissa raised a hand to cover her mouth and Aletha was muttering, "I will not kill him, I will not kill him..."

"Pa'foo!" Harry said, looking at the big, black dog.

"They discovered my secret," Remus said. "They started trying to become Animagi—succeeded in my fifth year. James was a stag, Wormtail was a rat."

"Rather fitting," Narcissa said.

"He's in Azkaban where he belongs," Sirius said. "And well rid of him. That's how I know the moons—every month, we were out in the forest, being idiotic teenagers."

"It helped," Remus said. "Under their influence, the werewolf was calmed."

"And if Danger's prophecy can be trusted, I've got to keep doing it," Sirius said. "But what about the first bit?"

"I assume if one of us touches Remus when he's transformed, something will happen to negate the mental transformation," Narcissa said. "Remus can't rely on that person alone, because Sirius must do what he can. There's someone else who can provide answers, but we can't rely on him."

"That makes no sense," said Aletha. "Where's the point in getting the answers from this person if we can't rely on them?"

"Who cares?" Danger said. "Someone female in here needs to touch Remus once he's transformed. Let's solve that problem first, please?"

"I can adjust the wards to box Remus into a space," Narcissa said. "We will just have to approach him and touch him one by one."

~*~

**Touch His Skin...**

"So, did the revoking of the contract go through?" Danger said to Narcissa as Aletha approached Moony, who was growling.

"It did; I am once again Narcissa Black," Narcissa said. "Luckily for me the Ministry found it acceptable to give me the Malfoy fortune, so Draco will be able to make use of it in the future. I left one knut in the Malfoy vault. Should Lucius ever return, it will be quite aggravating for him."

Aletha reached out, her hand sensing the humming of the wards before it brushed the back—

—and she jerked back as enraged growling erupted from Moony.

"Okay, it's not me," Aletha said. "Which is just as well, I don't know how Sirius would take me being off with another man every month."

Danger smiled somewhat at the joke and approached Moony fearlessly, her own hand coming to rest on Moony's back. A shock jolted through both her and Moony before they collapsed into unconsciousness.

"Figures," Aletha said.

~*~

**...Hear Her Mind**

Remus came to his senses some time later, after having gone through the same wedding dream that Danger had spoken of. Like her, he had taken her hand and instantly known everything about her. It was only with a little surprise that he noted he was still in his werewolf form.

**This woman is perfect for me,** he thought.

**Glad you think so,** came another thought, which did not come from him.

**Danger?**

**Remus?**

**I love you.**

**I love you too.**

**Want to get married?**

**Thought you'd never ask.**

**Is it odd that we're speaking mind to mind and not even questioning it?**

**After the past two days, I was accepting it as part of the deal of being magical. You mean this is something odd?**

**I have no idea. And it's not like I have any secrets from you anymore. Being able to talk like this is just a bonus.**

**Good attitude. I agree. Can I stop touching you or would that be a bad idea?**

**Give it a try—the wards are still active, so what harm can it do?**

Danger removed herself from Remus' vicinity, but nothing changed to her eyes. **Are you okay?**

**I'm still here.**

"Well, this is a fun development," Danger said. "You wait there; I'll go find Cissa so she can remove the wards."

~*~

Friday, November 27th, 1981.

**Visiting Grimmauld Place**

Albus finished his breakfast and looked around the Great Hall at the students who were involved with their breakfasts. His eyes fell on Severus Snape, who was thankfully free of Azkaban, though it had taken all of his influence to persuade Bartemius Crouch Senior to let Snape return to Hogwarts, free of any measures that Crouch had wanted to inflict on him. With a nod to Minerva McGonagall, Albus went to his office, from where he flooed to Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

He arrived in the middle of barely controlled chaos.

"Greetings, Professor Dumbledore," Sirius said, chasing after the three children.

"You warned me that things were chaotic, but I had not expected this," Albus said, looking about them at the boxes and such that were strewn about. "Surely the Blacks had a house elf that could assist with the packing?"

"Yes," Remus said. "And it was the same as not having one, so Narcissa sent him to Malfoy Manor. Come with me—the kitchen's the only safe zone in this mess. Sirius, get the others."

Albus gathered his thoughts as he waited for the other adults.

"Your owl said you wanted to speak with us," Remus said when they were all gathered. "Why?"

"You are raising Harry Potter," Albus said. "I had thought that I would not disturb you, but changed my mind and decided to offer help, should you want it."

"Why would you think we need help?"

"The mailing rooms at the Ministry are still overflowing with mail directed to Harry Potter and the mail for you and Sirius has become so numerous that you also had the Ministry redirect your mail to their rooms." Remus nodded and Albus went on. "I would be willing to have some of the Hogwarts house elves sort through it for you so that you need not concern yourself with it."

"That would be appreciated—we've been worried about that."

"Your letter indicated that you were moving to a Muggle neighbourhood. Had you considered warding?"

Remus nodded to Narcissa.

"The standard Anti-Apparation and Anti-Portkey wards, as well as a variety of others," Narcissa said. "We have little desire to be approached by the Dark Lord's servants, or those with dark intentions."

Albus nodded; it seemed they had considered everything. "But his servants are in Azkaban."

"For how long, Albus?" Sirius said. "Azkaban is not impenetrable."

Albus studied the five young adults before him. They seemed to have the idea that the Death Eaters in Azkaban would escape—perhaps they thought that Voldemort would return? He considered his response for a moment.

"You think that Voldemort will return?"

"That is our belief," Remus said. "We will take precautions to ensure our protection. But we will not live our lives in fear—the moment we allow fear to rule our lives, he has won."

"I share that same belief," Albus said. "Nevertheless, for now he is gone. As you say, Remus, let us not live in fear."

"Agreed," Remus said. "On that note, may I introduce Gertrude Granger, commonly called Danger? My fiancée."

"A pleasure to meet you," Danger said, keeping herself neutral. Albus did not fail to note this.

"Likewise."

There was a noise from outside the kitchen and with a glance at Albus, Aletha collected Harry, Hermione and Draco.

"Say hello to Professor Dumbledore," Aletha said.

"'lo," they chorused.

Harry looked at Aletha. "Huggy."

"Again?" Aletha said. "And you two?"

"Sees?" Hermione said.

"Sees!" Draco said.

"No sweets," Narcissa said, ignoring their pouts. "And don't you dare, Albus."

Albus smiled and put the lemon drops back in his pocket.

~*~

**Albus Realises**

As Albus prepared to depart, Sirius walked with him to the Floo.

"I need a favour," Sirius said.

"Indeed?" Albus said.

"Narcissa needs to give six weeks notice to the Ministry before moving residence. I escaped to this house to regather—never intended to stay here permanently."

"And now that you have a house elsewhere, you do not relish the idea of staying here for a further six weeks."

Sirius nodded. "That's it."

"I will see what can be done, Sirius."

When he was back in his office, Albus considered. He would of course honour Sirius' request, but it did answer the question of who had been Crouch's informant—there was no one else who would have had such detailed information and the will to come forward.

~*~

**To Dream The Future, Part I**

A fire blazed up in the clearing, sending out warmth and light. A stag stumbled into the circle of light, collapsing dead.

A wolf cub howled, coming into the clearing after the stag, only to be picked up by a large black dog, who was accompanied by a lion. The two pulled the wolf cub between them, protecting it.

A twig snapped in the underbrush as a coral snake came along, pursued by a pack of taipans. Just before the coral snake reached the circle of light, it turned back and in a flash of light, the taipans were gone and besides the coral snake was a fox cub.

The fox cub was placed with the wolf and the coral snake, dog and lion formed a protective triangle around it. The triangle became a square when a black pegasus flew down from above.

A whimper sounded. Then another whimper was heard, quieter than before.

As they waited, they were joined by a wolf, which carried a kitten by the scruff of her neck. The kitten joined the wolf and fox cubs and the square transmuted to a pentagon. Lines of power glimmered between the five animals, rising high into the air.

~*~

Sunday, December 6th, 1981.

**Interesting dream,** Remus said.

**There was no prophecy,** Danger said. **Do me a favour? Remind me never to move ever again.**

**Danger, never move ever again.**

**I thought having magic would make it easier for us.**

**Five adults, three children and three houses packed of belongings still takes time to decide on what to take and where to put it.**

Danger conceded the point and looked up at the ceiling. **Remind me why I'm marrying you again?**

**You're in love with me?**

**That works.**

~*~

**The Years Pass**

With their move into Oxford, the group was finally settled and ready to bring up the three children in their charge. Aletha continued on with her work at St. Mungo's, Sirius returned to his work as an Auror, Remus and Danger found part time work at a bookstore in Muggle London and Narcissa was left as the primary caretaker, at least during the daytimes when the other four were working.

Remus and Danger took a trip into Diagon Alley in early January 1982 to purchase her a wand—maple and unicorn hair, ten and a half inches—and commenced Danger's magical training soon thereafter.

March and April passed, bringing with it the respective weddings of Remus to Danger and Sirius to Aletha.

The May full moon was their sixth Den-night with Remus tamed by Danger's touch.

"Friends," Narcissa said, her words unsure. "There is something we have neglected. Concerning Remus."

**Concerning me?** Remus said.

"What is it?" Sirius said.

"Danger's second prophecy," Narcissa said. "The one that said that Danger could tame Remus, but Remus could not rely on her alone, for Sirius should too with Remus play."

Remus and Danger swore in unison.

"Language," Aletha said, though her own anger at forgetting was also evident.

"Okay, we can't change the past," Sirius said. "We've remembered. We'll fix it up. What about her first prophecy? Does that make any more sense?"

And although they puzzled over it until they fell asleep, they still could not figure out what it meant. But they decided that full moons would always be Den-nights, though on alternating months, Remus and Sirius would be absent from the home.

The May Den-night was also the Den-night when the deal of equal shares in the children was struck and the name of Pack was coined for their little family.

Come the June full moon, the werewolf was savage, having been denied for seven months, but as months faded into each other, an uneasy balance was struck between the wolf and Remus.

Meanwhile, a certain stack of letters grew higher every now and again, as the Pack adults—excepting Danger—would write letters to Lily. It was a tradition that had begun after Halloween of 1981, but none of them could really say why they did it. But it helped, as Aletha said to Sirius. It kept hope alive.

The children themselves were growing, beginning to push their boundaries, both in physical and magical ways.

Aletha would never forget coming home from work and finding a disgruntled Sirius chopping up vegetables for dinner, whilst the rest of the Pack laughed their heads off.

"What happened?" Aletha said, sitting down at the table. She glanced at Sirius, wondering if his hair was green, or if it was a trick of the light.

"There is no doubt these three are magical," Danger said, gasping for breath.

Aletha raised an eyebrow.

"They wanted Padfoot, but Sirius didn't feel like obliging them," Narcissa said. "So they threw a fit."

"And they did accidental magic?"

"Yes, they did," Remus said. "The results were amusing—and took forever to undo."

"And what did you do?"

"What else was there to do?" Narcissa said. "I went and got the camera."

Danger passed a set of photos to Aletha.

Aletha flipped through the set—Sirius in Animagus form, fur turned green and doing some sort of tap dance—and they all gave into laughter once again.

Toilet training three children was the next challenge that presented itself, around the same time that Aletha announced that she was pregnant—the combination of which no one was none too happy about. Three toilets amongst nine people—three of whom were being toilet trained and one of whom was pregnant and would therefore experience a greater need to use a toilet in her last trimester—was a disaster waiting to happen.

A disaster that thankfully never occurred—and when the sixth month of 1983 was born, so was Meghan Lily Black, also called Pearl. For the time being, she slept in her parents' bed, charms ensuring she would not fall out. When she was old enough, she would move to her own bed—"Or she'll move in with Draco, Harry and Hermione," Sirius said once.

Her addition to the Pack didn't bother the three older Pack-cubs—they welcomed her. After all, if it was not for her, they would not have a brand new toy to play with. Of course, explaining this to Danger only got them lectured—and several times at that.

"Meghan is not a toy," Danger said, shaking her wooden spoon at the cubs. "Understood?"

"Yes, Dayger," Hermione said, echoed by Harry and Draco.

"Good. Now go and play—and leave Meghan alone."

They scampered out and weren't seen until dinner, when the issue came up again, due to their short memories.

"We play with toy!" Draco said, with evident proudness.

"DRACO REGULUS BLACK!" Narcissa said, glaring at Draco. "How many times must we tell you Meghan is not a toy?! All three of you will be having no dessert for a week!"

"We no play with her!" Hermione said, glaring back as best as she could.

"We play with toy!" Harry said, nodding.

The adults exchanged a look.

**I think we were too hasty,** Danger said.

**Agreed. Let's find out what they mean,** Remus said. He turned to the cubs. "What do you mean?"

The cubs looked at each other and then scrambled out of their chairs, followed by five bemused adults. The cubs led the adults up the stairs and into the room that would one day be Meghan's.

"There! Toy!" Harry said.

As realisation percolated through to the adults, they gave into laughter.

The toy in question? Meghan's as of yet unused crib.

Books became a staple item for all three older Pack-cubs as October passed. It was this that signalled the start of lessons every day, as Danger and Narcissa taught them shapes and numbers and the alphabet—though these lessons never lasted more than ten minutes, since the cubs would run off for some type of game or another. Still something of these lessons stuck with them, for by Christmas time, all three of them were pointing out the letters in books that were read to them.

Meghan began teething in January of 1984, to the severe displeasure of the cubs and Aletha, who suffered bites on a fairly regular basis. The cubs learned fast not to let Meghan grab hold of any limb, for she would bite on anything she could.

The winter melted into spring and with spring, came an issue of _Witch Weekly_ that Sirius seemed all too interested in.

"What, you want us to read this?" Remus said, taking his issue from Sirius, who distributed copies to the other Pack-adults.

"_Hannerlore's Descent_, by Valentina Jett," Aletha said.

Silence fell as they read the story—or at least the first part of it.

"This is quite good," Narcissa said as she closed the issue.

"Hannerlore's in a bit of trouble, though," Danger said.

"I wrote it," Sirius said, his voice so soft it was almost inaudible.

"What was that?" Remus said.

"I wrote it," Sirius said, raising his voice and looking at his friends.

"So that's what you've been doing with my typewriter," Danger said. "I'd wondered. Well, go write some more. I want to know what happens next!"

Sirius grinned and bounded off to obey.

All in all, the many months had been kind to the Pack.


	2. Green With Evil, Purple With Honour

**Disclaimer:** As said in Chapter One: everyone but me owns everything that this is based on.

~*~

Another chapter, another list of things to state about the _Meledon Phoenix_ universe, this time almost completely contained to the Ranger side of the equation.

1. I have changed some things within the GWE miniseries to better suit my own needs, specifically, the order of some events and Tommy's evil persona. Also, Billy's not so technobabblish as well.

2. This contains references from Kyôryû Sentai Juurenjâ or, if you prefer, Dinosaur Task Force Zyuranger.

3. The information relevant to the holidays and customs of the Jewish people was sourced from Judaism 101 and from Rabbi Kagan at LeMoyne University, New York.

4. With regards to _Power Rangers_ canon events that transpire within Meledon Phoenix, where necessary I have watched the episodes in question to familiarise myself with the dictated canon.

5. Disregarding speech, 'Rangers' is all morphed Rangers; 'Colour' Ranger is respective morphed Ranger; 'Name' is civilian or morphed with helmet off.

~*~

**Meledon Phoenix: Prophecies, Pack and Pizza  
Chapter Two: Green With Evil, Purple With Honour**

~*~

**A Short History of Rita Repulsa**

From the start, it was an almost foregone conclusion that the M51 galaxy would fall to the onslaught of Master Vile, who sought the power of the Zeo Crystal. Two sorcerers escaped with the Zeo Crystal and hid it from Master Vile—for this, they paid with their lives. Although the Zeo Crystal was out of Vile's reach, he still finished the conquest of the M51 galaxy and then settled down to raise his family. He had a daughter and a son, both of whom were raised in the ways of evil.

His daughter was called Rita Repulsa. For nearly thirteen thousand years she grew up, nurtured and trained in evil, becoming a feared sorceress. On what Earth humans would understand as her sixteenth birthday, Rita began her path of conquest. For the next two hundred years she encountered little resistance as she gathered allies and subjugated resistances on various planets in the M51 galaxy by order of her father Vile.

Rita was not content to stay within the M51 galaxy forever and thus she gathered her allies and moved against a planet, thinking to conquer it easily—only to meet a rebel faction known as the Order of the Meledon. Although she was a sorceress, Rita had no knowledge of the Morphin Grid, which is a trifold plane of energy—Light, Shadow and Dark—that permeates the universe. As she served the Darkness, Rita drew her power from the Dark sectors, like her father and mother before her. The Order of the Meledon drew from the Light sectors of the Morphin Grid, since they served the Light.

When Rita had learned of the Morphin Grid, she swore to eradicate it. Thus the battle that followed became known as the War of the Grid—a name that continues to this day to describe—if improperly—the never ending war of Light against the Darkness.

The Order of the Meledon was commanded by an Eltarian sage called Zordon, who would later be known as the finest commander in the universe. Under his command, the Order of the Meledon fought back against Rita, using all they possessed. Two hundred and thirty-five years into the war, Zordon came across a map that supposedly led to a lost temple hidden beneath the Desert of Despair. Leaving command to the Master Warrior of Phaedos, Dulcea, Zordon and Alpha went to see if the Keeper of the Temple of Power, Ninjor, would aid them.

They did not find Ninjor. But they found a chest containing six Power Coins. These coins drew from the Light sectors of the Morphin Grid, transforming those that held them into a supernatural fighting force. Taking them back to the Order of the Meledon, Zordon chose six warriors who then became the first team of Power Rangers.

And the war went on.

It was a severe blow when the Green Ranger was captured and tortured to her death, for Rita now had the Green Power Coin. Desperate, Zordon struck a bargain with Rita: a coin toss for the fate of the universe. She agreed. By using the five Power Coins he still had, Zordon won the coin toss. Rita, unhappy with the results, double crossed Zordon by trapping him in an interdimensional time warp. His final act before Rita's spell fully activated was to trap her and her minions in a 'space dumpster'.

For the most part, the two thousand year war was over—although individual worlds still fought for freedom, those battles were confined to those worlds. The first—and last—universal battle had ended. Zordon had himself posted to Earth, where a Command Center was built. Once that task was done, the Order of the Meledon dispersed, never to be in contact ever again.

Millennia passed, bringing events with it both on Earth and in the universe that Zordon, 'asleep' in suspended animation had no knowledge of. The civilisation of Phaedos was wiped out. Rangers—powered by other sources—came into existence, fought their battles and passed on their powers when the time came or when their enemy had been dealt with.

The Order of the Meledon had not understood why Zordon had chosen to come to Earth.

Rita's space dumpster had, through unfortunate chance, landed on the moon that orbited Earth.

It was only a matter of time before it was opened by unsuspecting beings.

~*~

Thursday, August 23rd, 1984.

**After Ten Thousand Years**

It was meant to be a routine moon landing mission.

The flash of a jewel in the distance changed all that.

The two astronauts on the mission were intrigued—could this be evidence of alien life within the universe? They broke into a haphazard sort of run and reached a dumpster within minutes. It took some experimentation, but after touching the jewel embedded into the lid, the lid slid right off—and four lights flashed out, reforming into alien beings in the near distance.

The astronauts took this as a good sign to run away, especially when a fifth alien being was helped out of the dumpster before turning on the dumpster and destroying it with a blast of red light.

The names of the two astronauts on this particular mission were never released to the public. Indeed, as time went on, most people would forget that it was because of humans that Rita Repulsa was released to continue her plans of universal domination.

~*~

**Mojave Desert—The Command Center**

In the mountain ranges that separated Angel Grove from the Mojave Desert, a structure hid away from everyone, protected by complex technology. It was in this structure that Zordon of Eltar and his trusted assistant, Alpha 5 resided.

Zordon looked down at Alpha—a fully sentient, multi-functional automaton—from his energy tube. "We do not have much time, Alpha. Show me the destined teenagers."

"Right away, Zordon," Alpha said, utilizing a console.

~*~

**Angel Grove—The Juice Bar**

Kimberly Hart was dressed in a pink leotard, practicing her gymnastic moves on the balance beam. She placed one foot in front of the other; her arms positioned for balance as she pivoted on one foot and threw herself forward into a handstand, continuing to carry her weight forward. Once she was certain her balance had been re-established, she grabbed her hair from her shoulders and repinned her brown locks into a bun.

"Stupid mother," she said to herself. "Thinks pins are so much more fashionable than a hairtie—that's the last time I listen to her. Stupid pins keep coming out."

Just beyond the balance beam, Trini Kwan sat in meditation, her almond eyes opened but not looking at anything in particular. With skill and grace, the young Asian rose and segued into a kata, her movements swift and sure. Finishing her kata, she bowed to her opponent and picked up her yellow jacket, throwing it over her yellow and gray striped tank top.

"Be careful, Kimberly," she called out, receiving a nod before she turned to observe an informal lesson.

Jason Lee Scott and Zack Taylor circled each other before Jason launched a roundhouse kick, which Zack ducked to avoid before coming back up and kicking out himself. It was a good match, if slightly uneven: Jason was built with muscle and although Zack had an advantage with his lean frame and better agility, they both knew Jason would kick Zack's butt every time.

"Give up?" Jason said.

"Not yet," Zack said, grinning, kicking out at Jason. Jason easily caught his foot.

"Now, twist around so you're facing away," Jason said, before his muscles rippled with strength as he heaved Zack's foot up. Zack had only a moment to launch off with his other foot, but he tucked his body into itself, performing a flip in the air. As he landed on his feet, having executed the flip recovery, Jason nodded.

"You've got it, Zack."

"Thanks for teaching me, Jase."

Over by the counter, Billy Cranston had a book open as he scribbled various equations on a piece of paper. He wore a karate uniform with a white belt, but seemed to have forgotten about that as he studied his equations. Pushing his glasses back on his nose, Billy put his work away and turned around to look at Jason.

"Yo, Billy!" Zack said. "What's up?"

Before Billy could answer, Zack and Jason were joined by Kim and Trini. Billy gladly joined his friends and looked at Zack.

"Well, I think I'm mentally and physically prepared for my first karate class," Billy said.

Any further talk was halted by the arrival of Farkus Bulkmeier and Eugene Skullovitch: an overweight, insecure bully and his tall, stringy parrot—that is, sidekick and co-bully. They fancied themselves as suave connoisseurs of just about anything, apparently oblivious to the fact they came off as moronic, blithering twits.

"What do you girls say to a double date?" Bulk said.

Skull laughed—it was reminiscent of a hyena—and echoed Bulk. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Forget it," Trini said. It was best to be blunt with these two—politeness never worked.

"We're not good enough for you?" Bulk said.

"Yeah, we're not good enough for you?" Skull said.

"Leave us alone, Bulk," Trini said.

"Yeah? Make me," Bulk said.

"Yeah," Skull said. "Make me."

"You heard what she said," Zack said, placing a hand on Kim and Trini's shoulders in support.

"Shut up, nigger," Bulk said, his eyes narrowing.

Zack's hands tightened on the girls' shoulders. He hated the racial epithet—as much as he tried to tell himself that Bulk and Skull were ignorant morons and the word should mean nothing coming from them, it still cut deep each time.

~*~

**No, Not That! Not Teenagers!**

Zordon had seen enough. They were the ones destined to be Rangers and they appeared from this small interaction to know and like each other. There had been many teams that achieved greatness with much less.

"Keep an eye on them, Alpha. At our first opportunity, we must bring them here."

"Ay-yi-yi! Zordon, why them?"

"It has been foretold, Alpha. Only they are capable of defending Earth."

"Ay-yi-yi!"

Anything more the little robot would have said was cut off as an earthquake began to shake the foundations of the base.

"Rita has begun her attack. Alpha, summon the Rangers."

Alpha moved to a console, pressing a few buttons.

Seconds later, five white streams of light coalesced into the five teenagers that Zordon had observed.

"This place isn't exactly the mall, is it?" Kim said.

Her question went unanswered as the teens spread out, exploring the Command Center. They were impressed with the technology, especially Billy. He moved over to a console, intending to determine their location.

"Don't touch the consoles!" Alpha said, causing the teens to spin around and miss the appearance of Zordon in the energy tube.

"Welcome," Zordon said. His voice was deep and rumbling and the teens spun around again.

"Who are you?" Jason said, his arms folded over his chest.

"No, _what_ are you?" Kim said.

"I am Zordon, an interdimensional being caught in a time warp," Zordon said.

"And I am Alpha Five," Alpha said.

"Excuse me," Kim said, "but would like somebody come back to Earth and pick me up because I am totally confused."

The others echoed similar sentiments.

"The planet is under attack," Zordon said. "You five have been brought here to defend your world."

"Yeah, right," Zack said.

"Why us?" Trini said, looking thoughtful. "Why not any other five people?"

Zordon looked down at Trini, pleased with her perception. "Your destinies as Earth's defenders were foretold," he said.

"No way," Kimberly said. "I don't believe in fate."

"Look to the Viewing Globe," Zordon said, proceeding to tell them about Rita.

"How do we fight this Rita?" Billy said.

In appropriately coloured flashes of light, palm sized devices appeared in their hands, each bearing a coin with a design raised on it.

"What are these?" Zack said, looking at his.

"You will be given powers that draw from the ancient creatures you know as dinosaurs," Zordon said. "Those are your Power Morphers. When you are in danger, raise them to the sky, calling on the name of your dinosaur to morph into a formidable fighting force known to one and all as the Power Rangers."

He went on to explain the nature of the power they would hold, the weapons and the DinoZords, but it was to no avail—Zack and Kim left together, followed by Billy and then Trini. Jason left as well, but only after Zack called back to him.

But all of them had taken the Morphers with them.

~*~

**It's Morphin Time!**

The five teens were now about twenty minutes into Mojave Desert, trying to find a pathway that led back to civilisation.

"Guys, he wanted us to save the world," Jason said. "We should do it."

"I don't believe in fate, like Kim said," Zack said, shaking his head. "He said we were destined."

"Then why did we leave?" Trini said.

"We were talking to a giant floating head!" Zack said.

Without warning, a nearby rock formation exploded, sending them to the ground. As they stood up, they were surrounded by a group of about twenty Putties—grey humanoids with black clawed vertical stripes along their sides, with gloves and boots of a darker grey material.

Two Putties grabbed Kimberly and the fight was on, Jason and Zack taking nominal charge of an offense against the Putties.

Billy was the first to be overwhelmed, falling under the cover of a rock formation. The Putties soon threw Kimberly at Billy, allowing him to grab her breasts—purely to prevent her from falling on top of him. It was quite possibly the best moment of the young genius' life, even more so when Kimberly said nothing about him touching her or about how he'd kept touching her for longer than was necessary. Zack was thrown at them, followed by Trini.

Jason was the last, taking down three Putties with him before ending up with his friends. None of the five knew what the Putties were, aside from enemy combatants, but Jason wasn't about to let them win the fight. He looked about for his Morpher, feeling it pop into existence in his hand.

"Zordon said these Power Morphers would give us power," Jason said. "Let's do it!"

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!"

"Saber-toothed Tiger!"

"Tyrannosaurus!"

~*~

Such was the inauspicious beginning of the Power Rangers. The battle that day was of no consequence in the long run—it was a test of their capability and strength. Depending on one's outlook, by winning the battle, they had won or they had lost. In any case, they had come together to form as fine a group of superheroes as there had ever been. The five of them had been through an extraordinary experience together. They needed each other now and the world needed them.

In the days and weeks that followed, more battles ensued. Some of them were more tests, but regardless, the Rangers found themselves fighting for their lives each and every time, which was an unwelcome development. They'd all understood that they were fighting for their world, for the six billion other lives on the planets—it had just never been thought they would have to fight to keep themselves alive.

This point, however, had not yet been driven home all the way.

Rita's next plan would perform that unhappy task.

~*~

Monday, October 1st, 1984.

**Rita's Moon Palace—Finster's Laboratory**

"I have the Green Power Coin," said Rita, her brow furrowed in thought. "But when should I use it against Zordon and those Power Brats of his? To determine the right moment is vital."

"My Queen," said Finster—a white doglike alien and Rita's monster creator—respect evident in his tone. "The White and Purple Power Coins are not in current use by the Rangers. They could be useful to us."

"But neither side has them, you moron!" Rita said. "If they even exist. The Order of the Meledon only ever used six coins. It is impossible they could have had more coins and not used them. The Green Ranger's death procured me the Green Coin, leaving the five that were in the possession of Zordon of Eltar, when Zordon rigged the coin toss that decided the fate of the universe. No, I only have one coin at my disposal."

Finster decided not to mention she, technically, was the one who had done the doublecrossing by sticking Zordon in the time warp and continued. "What of the ancient tales of the Trphi warriors, my Queen? The ones who could draw power from the Morphin Grid itself without harm? A Trphi warrior could take power from the coins without having them, my Queen. And if you could find such a person as well as someone who could take the Green Power Coin, we would have two warriors."

Rita contemplated. Trphi warriors had become rarer and rarer in the years of the War of the Grid. It was no surprise—their abiity to draw power from the Morphin Grid burned them out sooner or later.

"What are the chances of finding two people?" Rita said.

"To hold the Green Coin, the chances are eighty-nine percent, my Queen, if you wish to be highly selective," Finster said. "As for a Trphi warrior, it is unlikely that one could be found on Earth. If there was, it is my belief that you would have to limit the usefulness of such a warrior by force-activating the Trphi ability, my Queen."

Rita paused. In the time of the War of the Grid, some Trphi warriors had their ability force-activated. All had been dead ere six months had passed. There was nothing one could do about it—something about the force-activation of the ability sealed one's death warrant.

"So be it," Rita said. "Begin searching, Finster. Find me a Trphi warrior."

"Yes, my Queen," said Finster, sighing. He resolved to keep his mouth shut the next time—every time he opened his mouth, he got something more to do. He had enough to do already, being Rita's creator of monsters and Putty Patrollers.

"Why do I have to search for a person who probably doesn't even exist on Earth?" Finster said as he began to run the search in his laboratory, having decided not to mention any result that occurred until Rita had chosen her Green Ranger. "It is a backwater of a planet, why would anyone have emergent Trphi ability on Earth?"

~*~

Tuesday, October 23rd, 1984.

**Angel Grove—The Juice Bar**

"Welcome to the Angel Grove Martial Arts Expo!"

Jason was dressed in red workout clothes, his dark gaze on the competitor who had signed up for the Expo out of the blue. His friends—Zack, Kimberly, Billy and Trini—stood with him, offering support, but he seemed unaware of it, too focused on the stranger clad in a green singlet and dark green pants. It would be a tough fight, he knew. Anyone challenging Jason in a serious contest was one of two things: a complete idiot or capable of fighting him. Jason didn't think this challenger was the former.

"Angel Grove's finest takes on a new competitor!"

Jason strode on to the mat, facing the teenager. Jason's dark eyes met the stranger's chocolate ones. They bowed and the fight was on.

~*~

**Rita's Moon Palace—Throne Room**

"Yes! I have found a worthy teen of the Green Ranger Powers!" Rita said, her voice carrying through the palace. "Finster! Have you found a Trphi warrior yet?"

Finster came into the room, nodding to Rita. "I have found a Trphi warrior, my Queen. My belief was correct; you will indeed have to force-activate her abilities."

"Excellent! I shall have two warriors to unleash on the Rangers!" Rita said. "Who is the Trphi warrior?"

"She is a student in the Rangers' grade," Finster said. "Adira Wasserman, weapons expert. Her only drawback currently is that she is short. She is even shorter than the Pink Ranger. I believe can make her taller if necessary."

"When you say short, how short do you mean? I do not want a pipsqueak," Rita said.

"The Pink Ranger is five feet two. Adira Wasserman is four feet five," said Finster. "There is apparently no reason for this at all that I can determine. I can add one foot to her height, however—I strongly suggest that I do so, for there cannot be many four feet five people who have her proficiency with weapons; the Rangers would be sure to suspect her."

"Very well. You will do so when we capture them," Rita said. She had half turned to leave before she turned back. "Wait. There is time enough—I believe I may look in my libraries for a spell that can be integrated into the rituals I will use to enspell her obedience. One more will not hurt."

Finster watched her go, returning to his laboratory.

~*~

**Angel Grove—The Juice Bar**

"You did well, Jason!" said Trini.

"I didn't win," said Jason. His eyes fell on a girl who sat awkwardly at a table, studying a very thick book. Feeling the gaze, she looked up at Jason, brilliant green eyes meeting his before her lips curved into a smile. Shaking her black tresses back over her face, she turned back to her book.

"Who is that?" Jason said, abruptly noticing that she seemed rather short from where he was looking.

"Adira Wasserman," said Billy. "I know her, she's in our grade. There is no explanation for her being so diminutive—personally, I favour radiation affected her DNA or something like that," he added, forestalling Jason's question. "Perhaps in utero."

"In the womb," said Trini, well used to the occassional translation needed.

"But she's about as smart as Kim and very effective with any kind of weapon," said Billy. "Her father had her trained from an early age to use all sorts of weapons, as her stature was not going to help her in hand to hand fighting if she ever got into trouble, she told me once. Unfortunately, her father died not even three months after he started her training." He lowered his voice somewhat and went on. "Since the Power enhances what you bring in, she'd probably beat us one on one morphed."

Jason shook his head. "That might be so, but we'd wipe the floor with her in hand to hand."

"Probably not me," said Billy, as the friends headed out.

"Oh, you're getting better, Billy," Jason said. "You should be able to hold your own."

~*~

Wednesday, October 24th, 1984.

**Angel Grove**

Tommy headed towards home after school, intending to drop his bag and then head off to the Youth Center. He had arranged to meet up with a girl—Kimberly—that he had met that day. He wasn't looking where he was going and when he bumped into someone; Tommy didn't even see who he'd bumped into.

"Down here," came a voice full of resigned irritation.

"Er, sorry," said Tommy, as he looked down at the girl, following her without thinking. "Er... Adira Wasserman, right? I'm Tommy. Tommy Oliver."

"Well, Tommy, perhaps you could look where you're going?"

"I'm sorry," Tommy said once more. "Er... think you could show me how to get to the Youth Center?" he added, changing his mind about heading home.

"Yeah, sure," said Adira. "Where'd you move from?"

"Houston, Texas, but I sort of come from all over the place," said Tommy. "I think we're here to stay, thankfully." By this time, they had moved into a shortcut through two buildings, whereupon several Putties materialised and began to attack them.

Adira snatched up a length of pipe and began beating the Putties up with it, whirling around in circles, whilst Tommy performed several spinning kicks and punches, easily throwing off his attackers, keeping well clear of Adira, who was belting Putties hard with her pipe.

"It's times like this I wish I was as tall as Kimberly!" Adira managed, dropping the pipe and withdrawing a knife from her side.

"Why?" Tommy said, tossing a Putty over his shoulder, too shocked to even question why she had a knife and grabbing a bin lid, sending the last Putty attacking him flying by throwing the lid like a Frisbee into it.

"So I could actually do some martial arts!" Adira said, slashing out at her last opponent. "It's kinda hard to be very effective against taller opponents when you're this short!" However, the two of them had dealt with the Putties and they disappeared.

"Man, why us?" said Tommy as the Putties disappeared. "It's like a bad dream."

"Welcome to Angel Grove," said Adira. "These Putties are normal—" She was cut off as Rita spoke.

"Tommy! Adira! I have chosen you to be my warriors!" Rita aimed her wand at them, causing them to disappear in a green flash.

~*~

**Rita's Moon Palace—Ritual Room**

Rita saw that both Adira and Tommy were in the crystal ball and she began the spell to bind Tommy to the Green Coin and make him hers. She would have to leave Adira until last; getting Adira under her power would no doubt be trickier, since she wanted to manipulate Adira's DNA and force-activate her Trphi ability, neither of which directly related to making Adira evil. She began chanting in an old evil language.

"Receive the Power!" she said, before going back to the old language. "Arise, my Green Ranger!" Rita ended, watching as Tommy sat up on his slab, looking ahead with unnatural calm.

"How can I serve my Empress?" he asked.

"Wait," Rita said, her tone short, turning to study the form of Adira. At last, she began to chant in an even older language, one that even Tommy in his evil state blanched from. He studied the form of Adira, which was glowing golden. Suddenly, there was nothing where her form had been. But as Tommy and Rita watched intently, a speck began to grow. Tommy recognised it for an embryo and watched fascinated, as the embryo became a baby, which began to grow in size.

Thankfully, Adira was clothed in a purple dress and white sandals, which grew as she grew. In the end, Adira Wasserman sat up on her own slab, brushing hair out of her face. The only differences in her were her hair, which was now pure white, her height, now five feet six and an apparent comfortableness in her new body, as if she'd always been such.

"Empress Bandora, how may I serve?" she asked.

Rita turned her attention to Tommy. "Prepare to receive the sixth Power Coin and become my Green Ranger," she said. Tommy held his palm out, watching the coin with the fleur-de-lis that symbolised the Dragon materialise. "Now, morph into the Green Ranger!"

Tommy swung off the slab and as his feet hit the ground, he morphed into the Green Ranger. His spandex suit was normal of the Rangers, with a golden shield on his chest. The helmet was also standard, the Dragon's open mouth forming the visor.

"Wow, nice duds," said Adira. "Do _I_ get some?"

"Patience," said Rita, her mind gleeful. "You do not get a coin, but you have something better. Look within yourself for the Morphin Grid. When you find it, isolate the active Green Ranger Powers." Adira made no movement or any response, but soon her hands crackled with green energy and then Green Ranger demorphed without warning.

"What the hell happened?" Tommy said.

"Your friend there controls the Morphin Grid," Rita said. "She can force demorph the Rangers when morphed, as just demonstrated." She turned her head to see Adira morph into the Green Ranger and remove the helmet. "And she can morph into any Ranger without the Coin! Demorph!" she added, directing it to Adira, who complied. "Now search for the powers at rest, not residing within a host."

"I sense two lots of Powers," Adira said. "The White and the Purple Powers."

"They are at your disposal," said Rita. "As Rangers, you can now enter the Command Center. There you will disable Zordon and then destroy the Power Rangers. Jason, the Red Ranger. Zack, the Black Ranger. Kimberly, the Pink Ranger. Billy, the Blue Ranger. And Trini, the Yellow Ranger." As she ended, Tommy morphed silently into the Green Ranger and Adira closed her eyes, focusing.

Adira screamed, her skin burning with white flames. A few seconds later, the flames dissipated, allowing Rita to send a healing spell over Adira's form.

"The White Powers will not let me access them," Adira said. A moment later Adira was morphed into the Purple Ranger. The costume matched Tommy's exactly through her manipulations of the Power, though her shield was silver to his gold.

"To the fall of Zordon and the destruction of the Power Rangers!" Green Ranger said, his voice dark and evil.

Her hands crackling with purple energy, Purple Ranger laughed, her own voice as cold as ice. "Five little Rangers, all in their Zords. Along came the Dragon and his mate. Four little Rangers, all in their Zords..."

"You know what to do," said Rita.

"Your wish is our command," they said in unison, teleporting out in sickly purple and green smoke patterns.

~*~

**The Command Center**

The two of them materialised inside the Command Center. Purple Ranger's gloved hands crackled and she shot Alpha with a blast of Morphin energy, shutting the android down. Zordon was startled out of his meditative trance by Alpha's one utterance of 'Intruders!' and he gazed down at the two warriors.

"How are you two here? No one may enter undetected without a Power Coin," Zordon said.

"We have a coin!" said Green Ranger, his tone triumphant as he held the Green Coin out. "We have a coin and we have the Power!"

"Rita has chosen a warrior to give it to," said Zordon.

"There's nothing you can do to stop us," said Purple Ranger. "She is our Queen."

"Tommy, she has you under an evil spell. Let me help. I can save you," Zordon said. Green Ranger laughed, looking around the Command Center, opening panels roughly and causing sparks to fly. Purple Ranger's hands crackled again and with a gleeful laugh, she sent Morphin energy all over the consoles, shorting them out. The two looked at Zordon's tube, where he had lost contact.

"You go," Purple Ranger said to Green Ranger. "I'm going to destroy the place." Green Ranger laughed, nodded and teleported out. Purple Ranger's hands crackled again with energy as she looked around. Suddenly she whirled and blasted the Viewing Globe, before whirling again and blasting the plasma tube, laughing as both simultaneously exploded. She built up the energy again and this time began targeting the consoles individually, watching each console explode into a thousand pieces.

Alpha's systems rebooted him and taking in the horror, he quickly made himself scarce, disappearing into a lower chamber, not wanting to be destroyed himself. At long last, Purple Ranger ceased and surveyed the damage, taking in the thousands of wires, electronic pieces, shards of metal, plastic and glass that covered the Command Center, which was a smoking ruin now. She held up her hand again, creating a large ball of energy that grew larger and larger as Purple Ranger prepared to teleport. Barely two seconds after she was gone, the ball exploded in a large cacophony of noise and tremors that were heard and felt in Angel Grove, bringing the Command Center in on itself, leaving it ruined and unsalvageable.

~*~

**Angel Grove—Cranston Residence**

"Tommy was supposed to meet me," said Kim as she and Trini walked to Billy's house. Trini could see that Kim was rather bummed by the no show.

"Don't worry, Kim," said Trini. "He's probably just lost. He _is_ new." By now, the two had made their way to Billy's house, where they found the other teens washing the RADBUG—a Volkswagen Beetle that Billy had modified with Ranger technology. It was capable of taking them anywhere on the planet's surface and could go from zero to three thousand in two point eight seconds.

"Hey guys!" Trini called, just as a distantly loud explosion reached their ears, followed by a sudden tremor in the earth, causing them to grab on to something steady for support.

"What was that?" Kim said as the noise and tremors died down. "Could that have been an earthquake?"

"Negative," said Billy. "At least, there wasn't warning of one around this time, though it is entirely possible that the fault predictions for seismic activity may have been abortive. I'd say, inferring from the clamour and tremors, that there was a detonation somewhere. Either it was very detrimental and went off in an outlying position to Angel Grove, or it was local to Angel Grove and not so injurious."

"A bomb exploded and it could have been far away and very destructive," said Trini, "or it was close by and not very destructive."

"And Billy thinks those are the two options, based on the noise and shakes we experienced," said Zack.

"Affirmative," said Billy.

"Any idea of what direction, Billy?" asked Jason. Billy looked around, making a few mental calculations as he scanned the east. Reaching a decision he didn't like, judging by the way he paled, he lifted his communicator to his mouth.

"Alpha, Zordon, come in. This is Billy. Do you read me?" Static was the only reply.

"You think it was the Command Center?" Kimberly said, a horrified expression crossing her face.

"I'm betting on it," said Zack as Billy nodded.

"It came from the portion of the desert where it is located, Kim—as near as I can tell. At least, I'm pretty certain that it came from the north-east and to the best of our knowledge, its locale is in that direction."

"Teleportation's down," said Jason, tapping his communicator. "We're stuck."

"Not necessarily," said Kim. "We can morph and run there, couldn't we? And doesn't morphed mode have its own teleportation system? We could use that."

"The Zords do," said Billy. "And I think it would be good to go in morphed. I think we should morph, Kimberly can call the Pterodactyl, and we can teleport into the Zord, or at least onto it for us four. We can hold on while Kim just does a straight flight."

They looked at Jason, who nodded. Looking around, they prepared to morph.

"It's Morphin Time!" said Jason forcefully.

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!"

"Saber-toothed Tiger!"

"Tyrannosaurus!"

At once, they took off running down the streets. "I need Pterodactyl DinoZord Power, NOW!" Pink Ranger shouted. Within seconds, the Pterodactyl was flying above and as one, they teleported up, Pink Ranger landing in the cockpit, the others on the back.

"Hold on guys," Pink Ranger said. "We're going north by north east!"

~*~

**The Dragon and His Mate**

Thanks to the speed of the Zord, the Rangers were soon standing outside the Command Center's ruins, watching as tendrils of smoke rose from the ruins. They unbuckled their helmets, looking around with horrified expressions.

"Who did this?" Zack said, looking around at the ruins. "The entire place's shot to hell!"

"Whoever trashed the place did it from the inside out," said Trini. "The structure's fallen in on itself." She picked up a piece of stone, which had cracks running all over. "The inside of this place is going to be useless."

"What about Zordon and Alpha?" said Kim.

"We've got bigger problems," said Jason, pointing out towards Angel Grove. "Goldar's grown and he's in Little Japan, I think."

At a look from Jason, Kim teleported back to the Pterodactyl DinoZord. Once she had re-materialised, she magnified the view of Goldar—a humanoid monkey from Titan. He was a formidable opponent, unhindered and protected by his bulky gold armour—and the only one of Rita's underlings able to take on the entire team of Rangers.

"You're right, Jase," Pink Ranger said. "We need MegaZord Power, in Little Japan."

"We need DinoZord Power, NOW!" the four currently Zordless Rangers shouted. The four Zords were soon on the scene as the Rangers boarded them, and within minutes, the MegaZord Battle Mode was activated and ready for a battle that no Ranger thought they were likely to win this time around. After all—they had no idea of who had done the damage.

And so the battle began. The Rangers barely managed to hold their own, Goldar was being more aggressive than he'd ever chosen to be before.

"He's got some sort of ace," said Red Ranger, parrying a blow. "Just what it is, that's what we don't know."

"He does indeed," said a voice. "He's got us."

"Okay, who was that?" asked Yellow Ranger warily.

"It was us, Yellow," said a second voice. "Why don't you five just demorph?" In five flashes of light, the Rangers demorphed, the MegaZord deactivating and going to their respective hiding places as the teens fell to the ground. The Rangers landed hard on the ground, noting they were morphed again.

"What the hell just happened?" asked Black Ranger. "I'm pretty sure we demorphed without wanting to, fell from the Zords and now hit the ground morphed. Not that I'm ungrateful, hitting the ground morphed was probably safer than hitting it demorphed..."

"Well, where are your manners?" came the second voice as the speaker walked up to them. It was Green Ranger and his tone was somewhat amused. "Why don't you thank my friend? After all, _she's_ why you were morphed to hit the ground in the second place."

"Something tells me she's why we were demorphed in the first place," Red Ranger ground out.

"True, true," came the first voice, as Purple Ranger appeared next to Green Ranger. "So I demorphed you and remorphed you. Big deal. I'll take Pinky and Blue."

"I'll take the others," Green Ranger agreed. He ran at Red Ranger, performing a spinning kick that brought Red Ranger down, before ducking and sweeping Yellow Ranger's feet from underneath her. He turned to Black Ranger and punched him solidly in the stomach, before kicking him savagely between the legs—this unfair attack left Black Ranger down and out. He returned to Yellow Ranger, snapping her ankle in two with a kick and turned to face Red Ranger, who was making sure Yellow Ranger was fine.

Meanwhile, Pink Ranger had leapt for Purple Ranger, her Blade Blaster drawn and firing. To her shock, Purple Ranger absorbed the energy, blasting Blue Ranger with it.

"You fight dirty," said Pink Ranger, circling her with caution.

"It's not bad to use your talents, Pinky," said Purple Ranger. "But as you will." A purple amethyst hilt appeared in her hand, a wavy blade of energy coalescing into some sort of steel. Although it was only sixteen inches long, Pink Ranger knew it was dangerous to her.

"Katana to Ptera Arrows?" Purple Ranger said, before twirling and slashing through Blue Ranger and then Pink Ranger. Pink Ranger had withdrawn her Blade Blaster and parried the strike; though she had no time to mount an attack, for Purple Ranger slashed her across the chest and spun to face Blue Ranger.

"Blue boy," Purple Ranger said. "Why don't you come over here?" Blue Ranger had his Power Lance at the ready, but his blow was parried and then he felt a sickening crack against his helmet as Purple Ranger smashed her katana against his head. Then the entire battlefield paused as Purple Ranger grabbed Pink Ranger tightly.

Pink Ranger resumed civilian form, her head pulled up sharply as Purple Ranger pressed the katana to her throat.

"Demorph, or Mei gets it," Purple Ranger said coldly.

"_What_?" said Red Ranger.

"I do believe you heard me, Red Ranger," said Purple Ranger. She reached down to Kimberly's hand and held it gently. Then without warning, she tightened her grip, crushing it brutally. Kim cried out in pain and Blue Ranger quickly scanned it.

"Every bone is broken, excepting the finger bones, the muscles are torn and blood vessels are bleeding all over the place. She needs a hospital," he reported, demorphing as he spoke. The others reluctantly followed suit, Jason with a dark expression clouding his face. Fortunately for Trini, her ankle had speed healed and she could at least stand and walk on it, though it would be very sore for a few days.

"Give us Kim," Jason said, his voice steel.

"Gladly," said Purple Ranger, shoving her towards Billy. Kim fell short, though and Billy caught her by her crushed hand, having no choice otherwise. She cried out again, tears now streaming, but huddled close to Billy as she stood shakily up.

"My Queen... do I understand correctly?" asked Green Ranger suddenly.

"As you wish, Empress," they chorused. And in a flash, they were gone, Kimberly remorphing. Kim called the Pterodactyl DinoZord, watching it hover above.

"One of them, I'm guessing Purple Ranger, can make us demorph temporarily," said Billy after Kim powered down. "That'd explain why Kim just remorphed and also how we remorphed before hitting the ground. Trini, I'm heading to the Command Center to see if I can do anything. Will you come with?"

"Of course," Trini said. The two morphed and teleported to the Pterodactyl DinoZord, flying out.

"And we'll take Kim to the hospital," said Zack to the empty air and Jason, morphing. "We'd best take her in as Rangers." Jason morphed as well, for now content to follow orders rather than give them.

"Zack?" said Yellow Ranger, over the comm. lines. "Talk to Jason, get him to realise it's not his fault. He's probably upset and angry over how this fight turned out."

"Will do, Trini," said Black Ranger. "But for now, we've got to get Kim to the hospital. She doesn't look so good."

~*~

**Angel Grove Hospital**

"We need a doctor!" yelled Red Ranger, hurrying into the Emergency department, carrying Kim in his arms.

"What happened?" said a nurse, calling for a bed.

"Rita's henchmen chose her as a hostage—they were prepared to slit her throat. They let her off with a crushed hand," said Black Ranger. "She seemed to be dealing with the pain until about ten minutes ago and then she just passed out."

Red Ranger placed her on the bed that a nurse hurried up with, looking down at her, his posture slumped in defeat.

"Do you know who she is?" asked the nurse.

"Our records indicate she is Kimberly Ann Hart, a local gymnast," said Black Ranger. He turned back to Red Ranger. "I don't think we should take chances on her becoming a target again—at least until we know why she was a target. They went specifically after her."

"Agreed," said Red Ranger. "I don't know why she was chosen to be a hostage, but better that Rita can't use her again. Stay here with her, I'll get the others to figure out why she was targeted."

Black Ranger nodded.

"Where do you want me to take the bed, miss?" Black Ranger asked, as Red Ranger left the hospital.

"Follow me," the nurse said. Within minutes, Kim and Black Ranger were in what the hospital referred to as the Ranger private room. The windows were bullet-proof glass, blacked over, the door was locked from the inside and there were no cameras monitoring the room. The Rangers were assured of complete privacy, a benefit gained after the Rangers had destroyed three security cameras.

As had become second nature, Black Ranger scanned the room, looking for anything that could betray their secrets. Finding nothing, he unbuckled his helmet and leaned against a wall. Turning his attention to Kim, he saw she was waking up. He tapped his morpher, his helmet reforming in position in a black flash of light. Although the room was always as secure as they could make it, the Rangers exercised paranoia in this regard and made sure that to the best of their ability, nothing could be traced back to their civilian identities.

"Excuse me miss, how are you?" Black Ranger said. "I'm the Black Ranger. You were used as a hostage by Rita's henchmen for some reason; they crushed your hand."

"I'm Kim," Kimberly said, her eyes showing resigned exasperation at the roles they were forced to play. "Why are you here?"

"We think Rita had another reason for using you as a hostage, so I have to protect you," said Black Ranger. Someone began knocking at the door, so with a quick 'excuse me', Black Ranger let the people knocking at the door in.

~*~

**Maybe Some Reporters Aren't So Bad**

Red Ranger walked out of the hospital, looking at the sun, judging it to be about five o'clock. Kim was fine; the hospital would call her parents. As for Billy, he said his father was on some work engagement; Billy wouldn't have to go home at all. So they needed to get a plausible excuse for himself, Trini and Zack to be absent from home, if needed. However, his thoughts were interrupted by the one thing Jason Lee Scott, as well as his friends, had grown to hate ever since becoming a Power Ranger.

A reporter.

"Can this day get any worse?!" he said to himself as the reporter made her way to him. Idly he tried teleportation, but it was no surprise when he didn't dissolve. He sighed and waited for the reporter.

"Red Ranger. November Milton, _Angel Grove Daily_," she said, tossing her blonde locks to the side and fixing hazel eyes on Red Ranger. "Could you please tell me what is going on now? That flying Zord zooming across our skies for no apparent reason after that explosion? The MegaZord just suddenly deactivating and disappearing? What is going on?"

Red Ranger studied the young woman, quickly recalling what he knew of her. At nineteen, she was one of the youngest reporters on the staff of AGD, with a professional determination that had her getting the best pieces of the paper. When she went after a story, you knew she'd get everything. He sighed.

"You want an interview?" he said. At her nod, he continued. "I'm going to offer you a deal. How would you like to be our official press liaison? You'll get all our interviews and such." He grinned slightly as November's jaw dropped.

"You're not... you're _serious_?"

"Let me be quite clear, Miss Milton," Red Ranger said. "I don't actually like reporters. Quite frankly, you're all a bunch of annoying vultures. That said, I doubt we can avoid the press for much longer, given the current situation. You're the best of a bad lot that I'd much rather have nothing to do with."

"Thanks, I think," November said.

"I don't have all day, Miss Milton," Red Ranger said in exasperation. "I've made the offer, take it or leave it."

"I'll take it," she said, pulling out a pad and pen as Red Ranger scanned the area, finally heading toward a deserted section of the parking lot, where there were several large trees. He pulled November close and jumped into a tree, setting her down on a sturdy branch. She raised her eyebrows.

"Interesting place for an interview," she said dryly.

"It's really the only choice we have," he said. "And until this mess blows over, we might as well meet here as anywhere else. Don't worry, you'll soon see why. So don't mention it to the world. Let me give you an abbreviated version of the back-story of the time up to here and we can move on to the current situation. And when this is all resolved, you'll have a hell of a story."

"Fire away then, Red Ranger," November said, her pen at the ready.

~*~

**Mojave Desert—Ruins of the Command Center**

"Anything, Billy?" asked Trini as Blue Ranger sat down next to her.

"Negative," said Blue Ranger, demorphing. "The entire place is destroyed. Nothing I've seen can be salvaged and even if it could be, I certainly don't have the time to be repairing it." He held up a device. "This was the only thing I could get working, after crosswiring some circuits and powering it up. We can use it once to heal Kimberly and then it's useless."

Trini exhaled noisily, slumping against Billy.

"As it is, I'm going to be here for the foreseeable future; not that there's really any point," Billy said.

"We don't have Zordon, we don't have Alpha and we have two homicidal Rangers on the loose," said Trini. "Wonderful." She sighed, her eyes looking into the distance. "We're on our own. Completely."

"I don't know what to do," admitted Billy. "This isn't something I can repair easily. I wouldn't even know where to start!"

"I have one question for you, though," Trini said, looking around. "What caused this?"

"At a guess, pure Morphin energy," said Billy. "That's the only logical answer that I can think of; what possible reason could there have been to use a bomb?"

"Well, logic says pure Morphin energy could restart the place if pure Morphin energy trashed it," Trini said.

"Worth a shot," said Billy. "But we'll have to wait until Kimberly is able to join us. Until then, I'm afraid we're stuck. We'll need all five of us to ensure we have enough Morphin energy."

"We'd better morph and go to her, then," said Trini, getting to her feet. "This entire mess is just getting started, if my feelings are correct." The two got to their feet and morphed, boarding Pterodactyl, which they had left nearby.

~*~

**Rita's Moon Palace—Throne Room**

"You have done well, Rangers," said Rita, looking at Adira and Tommy, who were both currently helmetless. "But for now, you should return to your homes. I will contact you if I need you."

"That works all very well for Tommy, my Empress, but I have changed too much," said Adira. "The Rangers would no doubt be suspicious of me, once they encounter me."

"A very good point," Rita said, beginning to think. "I have it! Tommy, you shall take Adira down to the Power Rangers as Green Ranger, bound hand and foot, with her clothes ripped and dirty and tell them that we have had our fun with her."

"Won't they get ideas? I don't want to spend time in a hospital being checked out; I can't be of much use in that case," Adira said. "You could just say you tested some serum on me and voila! The hospital can't do any good and the Rangers will have no choice but to release me—they have nowhere to check me out."

"Do it your way, then," said Rita. "But be ready to come to me, regardless."

Tommy replaced his helmet as Adira demorphed. Green Ranger slashed her clothing with his Dragon Dagger before binding her with ropes of green energy and plunking her over his shoulder.

"You know, Oliver, we are so going to have a talk when we next hook up."

"Just following orders," Green Ranger said, teleporting off and landing in Angel Grove Park. Yellow and Blue Rangers immediately dropped down from the Pterodactyl, having seen the green flash as they passed overhead.

"I'm not here for long, Rangers," said Green Ranger, flinging Adira to the ground. "My Empress wanted the girl to test a serum—you can see for yourself that it has worked. I'll be seeing you around sometime soon." And with that, he disappeared.

"Miss?" said Blue Ranger. "Are you okay? What did they do to you?"

"Apart from increasing my height by thirteen inches, nothing," said Adira. "Bloody bastards caught me after your first fight with them. Who the hell are they?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," said Yellow Ranger, sighin. "Where do you live?"

"I can get home myself," said Adira, waving their concern off. "And you two seemed to be on your way somewhere. I'm fine."

"What about your parents?" asked Yellow Ranger.

"Oh, yeah—my mother will freak out," said Adira. "Well, you both don't need to come, do you?"

"I'll go meet up with Red and Black Rangers," said Blue Ranger, moving off. "We'll regroup later, Yellow Ranger."

~*~

Thursday, October 25th, 1984.

**Angel Grove High**

"Hey, Tommy," said Kim, as Tommy worked at his locker. "I was wondering why you didn't turn up at the Youth Center yesterday."

"Something came up," Tommy said, his tone short.

"All right," said Kim. "I was just worried," she added, running her bandaged hand through her hair.

"What happened to your hand?" Tommy said, deciding to not brush her off.

"Got held as a hostage by one of Rita's henchmen and they crushed my hand," said Kim.

"Same sort of thing happened to Adira Wasserman," said Tommy. "It's all over Angel Grove. Two evil Rangers captured her and Rita forced a serum into her, which only affected her height, or so the Rangers say. Adira says she thinks she heard some white alien of Rita's saying the test was successful and they could use it on the—uh, I think they're called Putties?"

"Oh, wonderful," said Kim. "I think everyone in Angel Grove High has been ambushed by them at least once; serum enhanced Putties will be even worse! How is her mother taking it?"

"Well, her mother is keeping her home like every over protective mother; Adira'll return next Monday. There's also the fact Adira needs a complete new wardrobe now—I believe she and her mom are at Nordstrom's."

"I _love_ that place! Lucky girl!" Kim said with a blissful look on her face.

"And you can't afford it?" Tommy said, grinning.

"Damn straight I can't," Kimberly said, groaning. She was smiling, though. Tommy nodded and left, carrying his books, but not before leaning in close to Kimberly.

"I'm blowing off the last two periods assembly thing, like half of the school, tell Jason we can work out then like we arranged. Or aren't you guys?"

"No, we are as well," said Kim. "I'll tell him." Kim and Tommy parted ways, Kim heading to the lunchroom to meet up with her friends.

"We have to go to base after lunch," said Billy as Kim sat down. "I've thought of a solution, but it'll take all five of us to do it." He sighed. "And if it doesn't work, then we have no hope."

"Then I'd better tell Tommy that I can't work with him like I said I would," said Jason, swallowing his sandwich and standing up. "See you guys at the base."

~*~

**Rita's Moon Palace—Throne Room**

"Now, we must begin stage two of my plan," said Rita. "With the aid of my Rangers, Zordon's Power Rangers will fall, defending a city doomed to destruction."

"We should give the Green Ranger the Sword of Darkness," said Goldar, his tone harsher than usual. "That way, he will remain evil forever."

"Perfect idea, Goldar, I'm glad I thought of it," said Rita, hurrying into Finster's lab. "Finster, do you remember the Sword of Darkness? I plan to give it to the Green Ranger."

"Yes, my Queen," Finster said. "Originally, Zordon possessed it, but when your evil knight defeated Zordon's soldiers thousands of years ago, the Sword of Darkness was taken from Zordon and given to you as a prize. If you give it to the Green Ranger, it has the power to keep him under your spell forever, provided no one destroys it. The problem is, my Queen, Zordon knows this."

"But Zordon's gone and not coming back!" said Squatt—a hobgoblin resembling a cross between a warthog and a blueberry. His main service to Rita was as a spy and saboteur. "That Purple Ranger, she has an attitude—whatever Green Ranger has, she wants the same."

"But she doesn't _need_ a Sword of Darkness," said Rita. "Every time she uses Morphin energy, she's drawing from the Dark side of the Grid. If she were of the Light, she'd draw from the Light side of the Grid. As long as she keeps drawing from the Dark side, she will remain evil. Only if she stopped drawing at all, would she perhaps have a chance to be purified—but she has to draw from the Grid in order to morph."

"So we must give the Sword to the Green Ranger," said Finster. "But to appease the Purple Ranger..." He looked thoughtful for a few moments, then a sword that was more than twice as long as her current weapon appeared in his hand. This weapon had an emerald hilt. "I have a second sword for her. I obtained it some millennia ago—it would go well with her one she has now."

"Are you sure that's a katana? It shouldn't have a straight blade, should it?" said Baboo—a humanoid monkey with vampiric traits. He was an alchemist to Rita and a brilliant one at that. "The blades of katanas are slightly curved, I thought."

Finster sighed. "The Purple Ranger calls her current sword a katana. I have no desire to tell her that her culture would actually know that type of sword as the kris, of East Indian origin. If she has any intelligence at all, she'll look it up—in fact I am surprised that she did not know this already. My point remains: we can appease her with this sword. Her culture knows it as the kampilan, of Filipino origin. I have no doubt she could use two as easily as she uses one."

"They must earn their weapons!" said Goldar. "They are far too valuable to merely give them away. Let them prove their worth to wield such weapons by fighting the Putties!"

"Yes! We'll all go down to Earth together!" said Rita. "And once the Green Ranger holds the Sword of Darkness, he shall be under the power of my spell forever!"

"What about Purple Ranger?" asked Baboo.

"As long as she keeps morphing, she will remain evil," said Rita. "For no one who is good can draw from the Dark Side of the Grid and remain good. Slowly but surely, they will succumb to the evil of the Darkness. Such is the beauty of my enslavement of the Purple Ranger."

~*~

**Angel Grove Beach**

Tommy and Adira landed on the beach, in fighting poses.

"This better be good. I was shopping. And shopping is my third favourite thing," said Adira. "But better yet, I was in the toilets, washing my hands. I have about ten minutes before my mother comes to find me."

"Tell me again why you have this attitude?" Tommy said.

"It's not an attitude, Tommy, it's just the way I am," said Adira. "And perhaps it's a little worse now I'm evil."

"Silence!" said Goldar. "You shall meet a challenge. The two of you must fight the Putties, using only your skills and no weapons and then you will receive weapons of power!"

"Are you ready?" Rita said. "Defeat the Putties! The sooner you do it, the sooner you can go back to your precious shopping!" She put her hand to her head, shaking it. "Why did I ever decide to make my own evil Rangers?"

"Because we deserve to win!" answered Squatt, getting a rap on the head from Baboo for answering such a rhetorical question.

"Golems!" cried Adira as the Putties materialised around them. "Where are the Captain Golems?" She expected no answer as she launched into action. She back flipped away from them before bracing herself on one leg and kicking out with the other, sending a Putty flying onto its back. Adira jumped up and forward, landing between two Putties. One tried to kick her; she blocked, grabbed its arm and flipped him over her shoulder, before punching the other Putty. Her hands glowed purple, she back flipped again and got ambushed by two more Putties. She elbowed one, kicked the other and then swept the feet from under of the first.

Tommy grabbed the leg of one who tried to kick him, flipping it onto its back. Another Putty tried to kick him, he ducked and kicked it back, sending it flying into two more. He dropped to the ground as a Putty approached and he launched his feet at it, sending it into the air, where it crashed heavily into the ground. He punched another with a series of lightning punches, finally leaving it on the ground. He turned to the last, tussled with it but flipped it and delivered a punch to the chest.

"You have earned the weapons," said Rita. In two flashes of light, the Sword of Darkness appeared in Tommy's hands and the kampilan in Adira's.

"Ooh, a kampilan," Adira said, examining it. "This will go well with the kris."

"I thought you called the sword a katana before," Tommy said.

"I went and looked it up in the library, found the correct term," Adira said. "What kind of weapons expert am I if I don't even know the right terms for the weapons I use?"

"Enough!" Rita said. "Now go and deliver the Red Ranger to the Dark Dimension!"

"As you wish, Empress," they chorused.

~*~

**Angel Grove High**

Jason finally found Tommy talking to Adira, who simply nodded at him and took her leave, thanking Tommy for the notes.

"Hey, Tommy," Jason said. "I know we had plans to work out today, but something's come up that I have to attend to right away. It's really important and I'm sorry to bail on you like this—do you mind if we reschedule?"

"I understand," Tommy said. "No problem. I'll see you around, then."

Jason nodded, turned about and began heading out, intending to find a secluded spot to morph and teleport to the Command Center ruins. Tommy frowned, then brought his hand forward, sending a green bolt out of it, which hit Jason, teleporting him to the Dark Dimension in a flash of green and white light.

Jason landed hard on a stone surface, rising heavily to his feet. He looked around, his hands going for his morpher. But to his chagrin, he realised it wasn't there. Fog covered the ground and metal bars crisscrossed the circular holes in the walls, the centre holding some gargoylish type of creature. He tried again for his morpher, still finding it missing.

"Looking for this?" said a harsh voice in a mocking tone.

Jason turned around to see Goldar holding his Power Morpher and laughing. "Shit," he managed, which more or less summed up the situation.

~*~

**Mojave Desert—Ruins of the Command Center**

"Trini!" said Kimberly, as yellow light flared. "Where've you been, girl?"

"I was feeling strange," said Trini. "I realised I'd forgot my necklace this morning; for the life of me I can't remember why I took it off. So I went home and retrieved it."

"You expect us to believe that wearing a simple necklace makes you feel better?" said Zack. "Billy, is that even possible?"

"Scientists are theorising that magnetic forces may be utilized in blocking pain messages," said Billy. "May I examine the necklace, Trini?" He stepped close to her, examining the chain. "Interesting, the chain seems to be pure gold. How long have you had this?"

"As long as I can remember," said Trini.

"And how have you cared for it?"

"I haven't," Trini said. "I've never once bothered to do anything about it. I rarely take it off—sometimes I forget that I'm wearing it."

"But the chain shows no sign of age or wear and tear," said Billy. He took out the pendant attached to the chain, looking at it as he thought. It was a triangle of words, each side two inches long. The bottom word was _spirit_, the right hand side when worn by Trini was _faith_ and the left hand side word was _peace_. Inside the triangle of words, hung a black and gold pyramid, each side an inch long, hanging from a thin strip of black metal so that the pyramid's precise centre matched precisely with the triangle's precise centre.

"Interesting," said Billy. "Very interesting. I guess you're lucky it hasn't ever broken."

"While we're waiting for Jason, aside from looking at pendants, can you explain what you intend us to do, Billy?" Zack said, looking at the ruins.

"Affirmative," said Billy. "I have a theory that if we use the Power, channelled through our five coins, we might be able to repair the Command Center."

"Why can't we do it now?" said Kim.

"The Morphin Grid, where the Power comes from, has limitless Power, as I understand," said Billy. "The Coins draw from it and in the event that a Coin's connection to the Grid is severed, the Coin still has energy due to a backup supply. If our Coins have been severed from the Grid, we could morph still, thanks to the backup supply. But if we used it all up, the Coin would no longer be a Power Coin."

"And if we didn't?" said Trini.

"The backup supply would multiply until the reserve was met," said Billy. "The Coin would require reconnection to the Grid, to remove the dependence of waiting for it to multiply. I am concerned that if we do it with any less than five Power Coins, that we would overload the Coins and render them defunct."

"We'd have the Command Center but no powers?" Zack said.

"That would be the best case scenario," said Billy. "Worst case, we might have burnt out the coins without even generating enough power to restore the Command Center to any state from which we ourselves could continue."

"Then what difference do you expect Jason's Power Coin to make?" Trini said. "All of those things could happen even if we had Jason."

"Yes, there is that risk," Billy said. "I believe it to be a small one—the Coins are a team unit of five. I do not think that when they are used in this manner as a team, that there would be any complications."

"Can you explain any better?" Zack said. "I get that less Coins could equal more power which could equal no more Coins. But why does the Coins being used as a team matter so much?"

"I can't say," Billy said. "As I've said, it's just a theory and one that I am unwilling to test, especially in the current situation."

The other teens conceded the point and continued to wait, until Zack shielded his eyes and looked towards Angel Grove.

"Green and Purple Rangers are back," said Zack. "They're Zord sized, in the business district. It's Morphin Time!"

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!"

"Saber-toothed Tiger!"

~*~

**Rita's Dark Dimension**

Jason knew the communicators were offline, so he didn't bother to try his, instead devoting time to an assessment of the situation. Goldar held his Power Morpher, carried his own sword and was not an opponent to fight unmorphed if one could avoid it. Jason had no real choice, so he lashed out with a punch and then a kick, which Goldar easily blocked. Jason fell back, then launched into a flurry of punches. Goldar was not able to block all of Jason's punches, but still, Jason realised that punches were not going to be of much use.

_Punches are too easily blocked. He's got a height advantage on me. If I could morph, punches would be good, but more importantly; I'd have my sword to use against him. Could I kick him? They'd have to be fast, but they'd probably be effective._ Jason anchored himself and then spun into a kick, sending Goldar back a couple of feet.

"Give me my Power Morpher," Jason said. The coldness in his voice could have frozen nitrogen.

"A real warrior would take it from me," Goldar said. Jason's first instinct was to attack, but he drew on his martial arts training to calm himself; to attack when frustrated would not gain him anything. Without warning, he jumped up, kicking Goldar's hand. Goldar grabbed his foot and threw Jason to the ground. Jason sprang to his feet, trying a spinning kick that bought him some space, before Goldar moved in and punched him solidly again, sending him flying back to the metal bars.

"Understand this, Jason!" Goldar said with a growl as Jason got up with care, thinking he might have a bruised rib. "I could finish you off anytime I choose."

"Because you're too much of a coward to face me like a man," Jason said with venom. "You're too scared to have a real fight with me."

"Silence! Only Rita's giving you to me as a reward for faithful service has saved you thus far," Goldar said. "But you should hope I do not tire of you too quickly!"

Jason circled Goldar, watching for a suitable opening.

"You know, Jason, if you had your Power Morpher, you could get out of here," Goldar said.

"What's your point?" Jason said, ignoring the taunt. Goldar dropped the morpher to the floor. Jason kicked out at him, leaping for the morpher, only to be kicked aside into a wall, where he rose, now completely uncertain of where the morpher was. Goldar knocked Jason to the ground, where Jason leapt up, almost immediately, blindsiding Goldar, before dropping out of sight to the floor again, his hands scrabbling for his morpher.

"You can't hide from me forever, Jason!" Goldar said, slamming his sword into the floor as he began to walk around. "I will find you."

Jason shivered as Goldar slammed his sword into the ground barely an inch from his head. Still his hands frantically searched, but the morpher was nowhere to be found.

~*~

**Angel Grove—Business District**

November Milton was hiding behind a section of downed building, writing down more things for her story. Most sane people had left the area, so at least she was guaranteed privacy. She smiled as the MegaZord came to fight, watching the battle intensely. Against two opponents and three swords, the Rangers were doing quite well, managing to parry most blows, but that was all they could do. Still, it kept the evil Rangers from destroying the place.

Suddenly, the Green and Purple Rangers crossed all three swords and sent a bolt of green purple energy at the MegaZord, hitting it and causing the Zords to fall apart. This was almost immediately followed by another bolt of energy, which hit Yellow Ranger and sent her flying into November's shelter, whereupon she demorphed in crackling energy.

"Trini Kwan? You're a Power Ranger?" November said to herself, kneeling down by Trini's form. She got no response and moved her hands such that she could feel a pulse and breathing, except she could find neither. Trini's skin was a shade of greyish white and throwing all caution to the winds, November located Trini's xiphoid process and began cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. "One and two and three and four..."

Even as she worked to save Trini's life, November's mind was starting to put pieces of evidence together to reason out the identities of the other four Rangers. She paid no attention to the fight going on just several feet away. Black, Pink and Blue Rangers had landed on their feet, not having a chance to scan for Yellow Ranger as the Green and Purple Rangers returned to normal size and set into them, hardly giving them a chance to defend themselves.

"Three little Rangers, all in their Zords," said Purple Ranger. "Along came the Dragon and his mate. Two little Rangers, all in their Zords..." The two evil Rangers crossed their blades again, blasting them once more with the green purple energy and the Rangers demorphed into their civilian identities.

"We'll be back," said Green Ranger, before the two of them teleported out. Hearing a soft voice chanting, the three teens began trying to locate it.

"...and fourteen and fifteen and breathe," said November, clamping Trini's nose shut. She fitted her mouth over Trini's and gave her two deep breaths, before returning her hands to Trini's chest. "One and two and three and four..."

"Oh my god, is she dead?" came a voice, which November identified as belonging to Kimberly Hart.

"Not if I can help it, Pink Ranger," November said, giving Trini two more breaths, ignoring the surprised gasp. "Damn you, live, you damnable Ranger! I can't keep doing this; I've got thirty seconds before the three minute mark for brain damage!"

"Remember what I said about overloading the Coins? Forget it," said Billy, bringing out his Power Coin. Zack and Kim nodded, bringing out theirs.

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!"

The Power Coins glowed with energy, surrounding Trini's prone form with the power of the Grid. It was enough for Trini to regain consciousness long enough to manage a strained "...saber... toothed... tiger." The Power washing over her became a canary yellow, beginning the process of healing her. Her teammates and November waited in silence. At last, Trini gave a choked gasp and threw up, her eyes tracking rapidly.

"You alive, Yellow Ranger?" November said.

"I think so," Trini said, dragging herself into a sitting position. "How did you know? Who are you?"

"November Milton, your new press liaison, according to your friend Jason. You landed here and returned to civilian form, then collapsed," said November. "Jason told me a little of what's happened—can you give me an update?"

~*~

**Jason's Battle**

Jason heard the crackle of teleportation and gathered from the resulting conversation, that the Green and Purple Rangers were replacing Goldar. When at last he thought Goldar was gone, he gave up searching for the Power Morpher and pulled himself up into a sitting position, immediately finding the Sword of Darkness at his throat.

"So, you _were_ hiding," said Green Ranger. "Rita has sent us to finish you off." He stepped back, allowing Jason to rise.

"Where is your morpher?" said Purple Ranger.

"Goldar had it and it ended on the floor," Jason said, refusing to be intimidated. "I haven't found it."

"Grifforzer had it?" said Purple Ranger. "Then you are unable to morph."

"That'd be about the size of it," said Jason. "Why do you call him Grifforzer?"

"That is his name," Purple Ranger said, summoning her kris and kampilan.

"Right," Jason said. His tone was sceptical. Purple Ranger handed her swords to Jason, who regarded them with suspicion. "You two wear the costumes of the Rangers... though why you two are identical in appearance except for colour, I can only imagine."

"Use them, then. I give you my word of honour that they will not work against you," said Purple Ranger. "We are Bandora's Rangers and she is our Queen."

"She's evil!" Jason said, taking the swords, noting in the back of his mind that Purple Ranger seemed very much taken with the concept of honour.

"So are we," said Green Ranger, immediately attacking Jason, who set about defending himself vigorously, noting that Green Ranger did not seem to be bothered with honour beyond a basic level. Jason was allowed to rise before being attacked and was safe from attacks from behind, but anything else was apparently out of the question, for Jason was blocking very dirty attempts on his life.

_They're evil_, Jason thought to himself. _Maybe Rita has them under a spell. If that's the case, they can't be held responsible for their actions; they are not in control of themselves._ He ducked a sword swipe, brought up his weapons to block and then received a painful blow to the ribs, sending him to the floor.

Green Ranger stood ready to drive his sword deep into Jason's heart and as he prepared to do so, he hesitated just for a moment. It was long enough for Purple Ranger. Green Ranger brought his sword down on Red Ranger, creating sparks, but no death. Green Ranger spun to face Purple Ranger.

"I had him until you morphed him!" Green Ranger growled.

"Defeat him in a fair fight and you will be able to kill him honourably," she said.

"You gave him the kris and the kampilan!"

"And you are so stupid as to think that makes the fight fair?" Purple Ranger asked. "He could do no more than defend himself, not having the enhanced strength and such that the Power grants! Honour is important, Rangers! Even evil has honour!"

Red Ranger moved to teleport, but held off on teleporting, watching Green and Purple Rangers debate.

"Rita ordered us to kill him!"

"She did not say we had to do it dishonourably!"

Red Ranger hit his morpher, teleporting out, but not before saying, "You'll have to kill me another day." The two Rangers spun to see him disappear in a flash of red light.

~*~

**The Power Chamber Revealed**

Jason landed at the Command Center ruins, with helmet in hand, demorphing into his civilian gear as he walked up to the group that was sitting around, talking.

"Okay, what the hell happened?" he asked, noticing November's presence.

"The evil Rangers attacked us, causing Trini to demorph after she landed at November's feet. November had to perform CPR to keep Trini alive, we used our Coins to help heal Trini and then came back here," Zack said. "Our secret identities had been blasted apart, so we figured we might as well let our official press liaison get a firsthand look at everything."

"Not that everything is all that much anymore," November said.

"What happened to you?" said Billy.

Jason briefly outlined his experience, before dismissing it, but Trini eyed him for a moment before likewise dismissing it.

"So, are we going to try and restore the Command Center now?" Jason said.

Nodding, the Rangers and November stood up. November chose to stand apart from them and the Rangers formed a five-pointed star, holding their Coins out.

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!"

"Saber-toothed Tiger!"

"Tyrannosaurus!"

The Power flowed from each coin, before falling to the ground and disappearing into the earth. November approached with caution, but before she could speak, the ground opened up and they all fell down a very long shaft, eventually landing on a bunch of pillows. They got up and took a look around.

"This is the underground of the Command Center," said Trini, sitting down and breathing rapidly. "I'm fine—just want to relax a bit. I just didn't need that fall."

Suddenly, Trini's body was overwhelmed by light and she disappeared, teleporting away. Billy followed and then Kim, Jason and Zack. November looked around nervously, before disappearing herself in a streak of light. She materialized after a few seconds, looking around.

"Welcome to the Power Chamber," came Zordon's voice.

"Zordon!" the Rangers chorused.

"You Rangers have done well," said Zordon. "But still we face the threat of Rita, now strengthened immeasurably by the addition of the two Rangers."

"Could they be under a spell?" asked Jason.

"That is probable, Jason," said Zordon. "The question remains of how a spell, if it has been cast, could be removed. It is possible that Rita is controlling them by another means, but a spell would be the most likely option."

Zordon looked at November.

"November Milton," Zordon said.

"Hello?" November said, in a slight state of shock.

"I am most grateful to you for your work in keeping our Yellow Ranger alive. It would have been quite the blow to lose her."

"No problem," November said. Her mind was spinning. She stuck out her wrist absently as Billy fastened a rainbow coloured communicator on it.

"I must ask you to take an oath never to reveal the identities of the Power Rangers," Zordon said.

"This... is all a bit too much," said November. "A giant floating head?" She took her mind back on track. "An oath. Sure. I won't tell anyone. We settled?" When Zordon nodded, November looked at her communicator, absently tapping it. The Rangers heard a startled yelp and then no more as she teleported out.

"I'll go after her," Kim said with a slight smile.

As Kim teleported off, Zordon dismissed the other teens.

~*~

**Baptism of Fire—Trini and Jason**

Jason and Trini worked in silence, exchanging supportive glances every now and again. After the events of today, neither had been surprised that they both had reached the same decision. After a time, Trini set down her pen.

"It's not perfect, but it'll do," Trini said.

"Same here," said Jason. "My parents went to a lawyer when they went through this. I can just see that happening for us."

Trini smiled a little as the two friends exchanged the papers they had been writing on.

Jason blinked at the simplicity of Trini's paper.

_My name is Trinity Elizabeth Kwan. On this day of Thursday, October 25th, 1984, I hereby reject any and all wills made by me prior to this one._

_I am dead. Do not mourn. All who are born, die. All who die, are reborn. It is the nature of things. Take of my possessions, earthly and bodily and use them that others might be helped._

_Signed: Trinity Elizabeth Kwan.  
Date: October 25th, 1984._

"I feel long winded now," Jason said, gesturing at his paper as Trini read it.

_My name is Jason Lee Scott. On this day of Thursday, October 25th, 1984, I hereby reject any and all wills made by me prior to this one._

_Obviously if you're reading this, I am dead. Right now, I have a reasonable idea of how my death might occur and when it might. If those suspicions are correct, then I would say that only my parents would still be in the dark. If that is true, I only hope that someone will able to tell them of the true circumstances of my death._

_Regarding my funeral, I do not wish for anything fancy. Simple elegance will be fitting. I do request that my coffin be draped in symbols of hope, freedom and peace. They are ideals I fight for almost every day of my life._

_As for my material possessions, I request that my friends, Zack Taylor, Kimberly Ann Hart, William James Cranston, and Trinity Elizabeth Kwan select items that hold special significance to them, unless they are otherwise marked in this will._

_My photos are to be sorted and given out to my friends and relatives._

_I would like my karate gear to be given to less fortunate people who wish to take up karate, but who cannot afford the gear, unless my parents would rather to keep it for themselves in my memory._

_My few stuffed animals are to be given to less fortunate children, except Tyranno and Ptero. Tyranno is to be returned to Trinity Kwan and Ptero to Kimberly Hart, who originally gave them to me._

_All my other possessions are to be dealt with according to my instructions and my parents' wishes._

_Signed: Jason L. Scott.  
Date: October 25th, 1984._

"You care more about those things, because of your beliefs," Trini said. "I believe different things, so I care less about them." She gave a gentle smile. "Don't worry, Jason."

"It just feels odd," he said, folding his will into an envelope. "I've never really thought about this before. If it hadn't been for Purple Ranger, I'd be dead, skewered through the heart."

Trini nodded. "Why did she save you?"

"Because of honour," Jason said. "I don't get it either."

"Do you think that was her fighting back against the spell?" Trini said.

"Could be," Jason said. "I did find it strange that she cared so much."

"But she can't fight against it forever," Trini said. "I'd imagine that at some point, the spell will prove too powerful."

Trini's words were interrupted by the six tone beep of their communicators.

"Rangers," Alpha said, his voice full of static—for all their advanced technology, they couldn't get a clear signal—"the Green and Purple Rangers are terrorising downtown Angel Grove!"

"We're on it, Alpha," Trini said. "It's Morphin Time!"

~*~

**For Whom The Bell Tolls**

The Rangers spread out, trying to locate where in the strafe of destruction the two evil Rangers were. They didn't have far to go before encountering Purple Ranger, who had her kris to a hostage's throat. The hostage was an African-American female, with white hair due to her age, which the Rangers estimated as closer to sixty than fifty or seventy. And in her hand, a length of wood that had been cleaved in two was visible, the top part hanging down. Somehow the two pieces stayed connected.

"She's a witch," Yellow Ranger said, her voice almost inaudible.

The others didn't 'hear' her comment, lost in the adrenaline rush of battle.

"How nice to see you again," Purple Ranger said, the sarcasm evident. She kept the kris at the throat of the witch she'd captured. "Unless you want her dead, you are going to listen to me."

"Let her go," Red Ranger said.

"I don't think so," Purple Ranger said. "Now, you five are going to demorph and walk out of here."

"What, are you crazy?" Black Ranger said. "Let you evil Rangers cause destruction?"

Purple Ranger twisted her kris and now pressed it into the soft flesh. "You five really think you're in a position to negotiate? I've given you my terms."

The Rangers began to spread out around Purple Ranger, Black and Pink Rangers diverted off to go deal with Green Ranger.

"Let her go," Yellow Ranger said. "She's a civilian!"

"Weren't you proclaiming that even evil had honour?" Red Ranger said. "What's so honourable about killing a defenceless civilian? Let her go!"

"Nothing," Purple Ranger said. "But—"

Blood spurted out in a geyser from the woman's throat and Purple Ranger dropped the body to the ground.

"—she wasn't defenceless."

The Rangers looked on, horrified. There had been civilian injuries during battle and yes, those injuries had led to death in a couple of cases—usually from comas or other head injuries—but this was the first intentional death and the first death they'd personally witnessed.

Everyone stood still—even the evil Rangers.

"Let's go, Green Ranger," Purple Ranger said. In bursts of flames, they disappeared, the destruction around the Rangers reverting back to what it had been—all except for the splatters of blood and the body of the unknown civilian.

Yellow Ranger approached the body, extracting the wand from the hand.

"Trini?" Pink Ranger said.

"Leave," Yellow Ranger said. "I'll be along."

She began to search the body for identification, but before she could find anything, she felt something hit her helmet. Looking up, she saw a creature. After a moment she was able to identify it as a goblin.

"Greetings," she said. "I am the Yellow Ranger. May I know your name?"

"My name is Gorignak," Gorignak said. "We know of you, Yellow Ranger. You will tell us what happened here."

"Our foe, Rita Repulsa, has enslaved two Rangers. It was one of them who killed this witch."

"You understand what she is?" Gorignak said.

"And I understand what you are," Yellow Ranger said. "We do not miss much that happens on this world we protect. I presume you have taken precautions to hide yourself from those you call Muggles?"

"We have," Gorignak said. "If you please?"

Yellow Ranger stood up and moved away.

"I am surprised that goblins were sent to collect her body," Yellow Ranger said. "I understood the goblins were the bankers."

"You understand correctly. Amy Freeman was the highest ranked human in Noxet Bank; as such we kept tabs on her—someone might have decided to hurt her to get at the bank. We knew of her peril but could not get here in time. Farewell, Yellow Ranger. I hope we will not meet again."

"Understood." In a streak of canary yellow, Yellow Ranger teleported off, leaving the goblins to remove the body of Amy Freeman.

~*~

**Meetings**

Amy Freeman stood up, a blue line extending into the distance.

MY APOLOGIES.

The blue line was severed, a yellow flash of light emanating from the severing point.

YOU DO NOT SEEM THE TYPE TO BECOME A GHOST.

"No, it never did seem a good thing to me."

GOODBYE.

~*~

**The Power Chamber**

"Her name was Amy Freeman," Trini said once she was back in the Power Chamber and demorphed.

"Wonderful," Zack said, leaning against the wall. "That just makes everything so perfect."

"The sensors lost you for a few minutes," Billy said. "What happened?"

Trini shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it. I... took the body to the family."

Whether or not she was believed, the matter was left to rest.

~*~

**Angel Grove—Cranston Residence**

Billy teleported back into his lab—it was actually the Cranston's unused garage—and stood near the door that connected it to the rest of the house, running his fingers over the cracks in the wooden doorframe. There was much in his head he needed to think about. As was usual his mind defaulted to thinking about what was around him.

He hissed as a splinter ran into his finger.

"Dad really ought to get this door repaired," he said, knowing as he said it why Hank Cranston would not. It served as a reminder to Hank. Billy had been given the lab when he was seven—his mother had told him that anything he found in it was for his personal use and that when he was in the lab and the door was closed, the rule was that he was not to be disturbed if at all possible. He never had been, except on two occasions. The first when Hank came in to tell him his mother was dead. And the second had been a little over two years later.

Billy blinked back a few tears. He'd dealt with all the grief, but remembering still hurt sometimes. For those two years, Billy had been alone as Hank retreated into a world of grief, loneliness and pain. If it hadn't been for his friends, the months would have been much harder. The day when Hank had woken up and realised that he still had a son left to him—the cracks in the door bore witness to Hank Cranston's frenzied attempt to get to his son.

Billy smiled as he recalled the next part. Hank had—out of guilt—promised Billy anything he wanted, expecting that Billy would ask for laboratory stuff. Billy had just wanted to spend time with his dad.

As Billy shook his head to clear it, the door opened, cracking against his skull.

"Are you okay, Billy?" Hank Cranston said as he came in, looking at his son.

"You know, that's why you knock. So you _don't_ give your favourite son a concussion," said Billy, rubbing his forehead.

"You're my only son," Hank said, amused.

"I think I'll be okay," Billy said. "What did you need, Dad?"

"Do you remember a few months back, I was seeing a woman; it was kind of casual?" Hank said.

"Yeah, I remember. Neither of you wanted to meet the other's family because you didn't—" Billy cut himself. "What aren't you telling me?"

"She has suggested marriage," Hank said, treading with caution. "What would you think of that?"

Billy stared at his father. "She what?"

"She would like to get married," Hank said. "But one thing we do agree on is that we will not get married without our children's consent—they will be affected just as much in this union. Her daughter, Adira has given her consent... her exact words were 'Cranston? Billy Cranston? Yeah, why not? It'd be fun.' What do you make of that?"

"She's developed a weird sense of humour?" Billy said. "You mean Adira Wasserman, right?"

"Indeed, Billy."

"Let me think on this, Dad. It's a bit much to take in."

Hank nodded and after squeezing Billy's shoulder, he left his son to think.

~*~

Friday, October 26th, 1984.

**Angel Grove High**

"Yo, Billy, my main brain!" called Zack. "Hurry up and come tell us what's eating you!"

"I was not aware that I was displaying any signs of distraction," Billy said, joining his friends.

"You've buttoned your shirt up the wrong way," Kim said. "You only do that when you're preoccupied."

Billy sighed and restored his attire to rights. "Nothing is wrong. My father has enlightened me as to the position of his connubial grade and has placed upon me the task to ascertain my judgement of the current standing progressing to a higher state."

The others looked at Trini.

"His father told him what his marital status was and has given Billy the job of deciding how he feels about that status becoming more than it is now," Trini clarified.

"Affirmative, Trini," Billy continued. "According to my father, he has been casually seeing Adira's mother, but I doubt that, for it is now of enough importance that they are considering conjugal associations and have asked Adira and I to give our rulings about whether they will or not. Adira has agreed, I am still deciding."

"Their parents are considering marriage, but won't do it unless Adira and Billy agree to it," said Trini. The teens fell silent, each of Billy's friends silently thinking, _this is going to be a disaster_. Yes, Billy was not as shy anymore and that was good. But he was also shy and discomforted around people he didn't know very well, females especially. He only knew Adira through working with her at school.

"If I may make a suggestion, Billy," Jason said.

"You may," Billy said.

Trying to be tactful, Jason considered his words carefully. "If you decide that you do not mind the wedding going ahead, I think it would be a good idea for you to insist that a brand new house be purchased. You see, that way neither family comes into a home that is somehow, invisibly, marked as the other family's territory. You'd be starting on neutral territory, as it were."

Jason let Billy consider his words, before Adira barrelled right into them, running at what seemed like one hundred miles per hour.

"Hey, Billy!" she said chirpily. "So, what've you decided?"

"Billy—" said Trini, before Adira cut her off.

"I'm sure he can talk for himself, Trini," she said. "So, Billy?"

"I have desisted from asserting my estimation of the state of affairs, because I am unresolved as to my estimation of the said affairs," said Billy.

"And in plain English?"

"Billy has not yet decided on his opinion, so he has stopped himself from giving one," said Trini.

"Right..." said Adira. "We have a restaurant dinner tonight, apparently, to talk about what we think of the wedding."

"Should be fun," Billy said.

"Maybe, but I have a feeling that it will only show us all what differences we have to work through," said Adira.

"What do you mean?" Billy said.

"It is Shabbat. We light our candles at fourteen to five tonight."

"Oh, man," said Zack. "That is a problem."

"You're Jewish," said Billy levelly. No judgement was in his tone, it was simply an observance.

"I am indeed," Adira said. "Whilst your father knows that—or at least I hope he knows that—I'm sure he doesn't fully appreciate the difficulties that we two families will go through. But Shabbat is the easiest night to sort out solutions for; it'll only become much harder from here. I'll warn you. The restaurant is a Jewish restaurant. Whilst it doesn't matter when we attend—we have a seven o'clock reservation; my mother and I have to attend synagogue before dinner—the observances of Shabbat remain the same, no matter the time of dinner. The food is kosher, according to Kashrut, as another warning."

"Thanks for the warnings," Kim said as Adira left. "Well, we now have to spend lunch in the library, researching this 'Shabbat' so you can warn your dad."

"And kosher food," said Trini. "It would be very rude to ask for something that is not permitted by Jewish laws. But if your father has been seeing Adira's mother for this long, surely he understands at least the laws on food."

"You'd hope so," said Billy. "From Adira's words, I have a bad feeling he doesn't."

~*~

**Rita's Moon Palace—Throne Room**

"I like how things are progressing," said Rita. "I believe now I shall release Scorpina from where she has waited thousands of years for us. She shall be with us when we claim victory!"

"Yes! Release Scorpina!" said Baboo. "She's so evil!"

"From deep inside an evil place, bring forth a warrior of the scorpion race," Rita chanted. "Armour golden, of many dangers, let her destroy the Power Rangers!" Lightning crackled from her wand, striking down to the Earth near a cave. A rock with a scorpion on it began to roll out of the cave, coming to rest in a field.

In a golden flash of light, the rock and scorpion disappeared and a pretty Asian woman, clad in golden armour that was modelled after a scorpion's body appeared.

"Rita! You have freed me! I have returned to help you defeat Zordon!"

In golden light, she disappeared from Earth, reappearing in the Palace. Walking up to Rita, she knelt, offering her service.

"Today, you will go and fight the Rangers," said Rita, watching Scorpina stand and take her place beside Goldar. "Then tomorrow, we will cut the power to their Zords by creating a solar eclipse when they are fighting Goldar, Scorpina, Purple Ranger and Green Ranger. They will have no chance. Against four opponents and rapidly diminishing energy, they will soon be defeated."

"I am pleased to serve you, Empress Rita," Scorpina said. "But who are these evil Rangers of whom you speak?"

"They're in school," said Rita, unimpressed. "Since I don't wish for my Rangers' covers to be blown, I cannot summon them presently."

"But, Empress," said Squatt. "We're going to win, so who cares if we take a bit longer than we really want?"

"I do!" Rita said. "I want my victory to come quickly! I finally have a chance to claim the Earth for my own and I will not have it slowed any more than necessary!" She glared at Squatt, who hid behind Baboo. "You will fight them, Scorpina, with our Rangers, at three. But come four-thirty, you must let them alone. Purple Ranger has a family engagement she insists she cannot miss."

"You are giving the Rangers a lot of leeway," said Scorpina, her voice calm.

"Not so," said Rita. "She proved to me that to miss the engagement would be disastrous to her fighting on my side. Her mother would ground her and guard her constantly, she said. So I wait."

~*~

**Angel Grove High—Library**

"Found anything out?" said Kim, carrying over an armful of books.

"Certain animals may not be eaten at all. This restriction includes the flesh, organs, eggs and milk of the forbidden animals," Jason said. "Land mammals, except for swarming rodents, must both have cloven hooves and chew their cud to be kosher. The camel, rock badger, hare and pig are specifically stated as not kosher, because they lack one or the other of those qualities. However, sheep, cattle, goats and deer are kosher."

Jason returned to the book, beginning to paraphrase. "Shellfish such as lobsters, oysters, shrimp, clams and crabs are not kosher, because they don't have fins and scales. Fish like tuna, carp, salmon and herring is kosher, because they have fins and scales. Birds of prey or scavengers are forbidden. Chicken, geese, ducks and turkeys are kosher, though. Some winged swarming things or winged insects if you prefer, were once permitted, but they are all forbidden, since no one is sure what ones were or weren't permitted.

"There is a thing called 'glatt'," Jason said. "This means 'smooth'. After death, some authorities require an examination to determine if the lungs are free from adhesions and if they are, the animal is pronounced 'glatt kosher'. An animal may be kosher without being glatt, under certain circumstances, but the stringency of keeping 'glatt kosher' is starting to become common."

Billy was quite silent as his friends read, but he listened attentively.

"Of the animals that may be eaten, the birds and mammals must be killed in accordance with Jewish law," said Trini. "Animals that have died of natural causes or that have been killed by other animals are not kosher. In addition, only the flocks and herds must have no disease or flaws in the organs at the time of slaughter."

"All blood must be drained from the meat or broiled out of it before it is eaten," said Zack. "The method of ritual slaughter, shechitah, is a quick, deep stroke across the throat with a perfectly sharp blade with no nicks or unevenness. This method is painless, causing unconsciousness within two seconds and also ensures rapid, complete draining of the blood, rendering the meat kosher. Whatever blood remains must be removed either by broiling or soaking and salting."

Zack checked the book again. "Liver can only be kashered—I think that means to remove blood—by the broiling method because there is so much blood in it and very complex blood vessels. This final process must be completed within seventy-two hours after slaughter and before the meat is frozen or ground. Hmm... an egg that contains a blood spot may not be consumed. It's a good idea to break the egg into a container and check it before putting it into a heated pan, because if the egg is bloodstained and put into a heated pan, the pan becomes non-kosher. "

Billy added, "Certain parts of permitted animals may not be eaten. This applies to the sciatic nerve and a certain type of fat, known as chelev. The chelev is removed by a kosher butcher, but most slaughters sell the hind quarters, where the sciatic nerve is located to non kosher butchers, as the process of removing this nerve is time consuming and not cost effective."

"Meat cannot be eaten with dairy. Fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables and grains can be eaten with either meat or dairy. According to some views, fish may not be eaten with meat," said Kim, putting the books down and closing the top one. "Poultry and milk may not be eaten together. Meat and fish may not be cooked together or be served on the same plates. It is permitted to eat fish and dairy together and also to eat dairy and eggs together."

Kim sighed, opening the book again. "Would you believe that this separation of these foods also applies to the utensils, pots and pans in which they are cooked, the plates and flatware from which they are eaten, the dishwashers or dishpans for cleaning them and the towels for drying them?"

Billy's jaw dropped. "You're joking," he managed.

"No, I'm Kimberly," Kim answered, showing him the book. "It also says you must wait between three to six hours after eating meat before eating dairy; however, you need only rinse the mouth and eat a neutral food such as bread, after eating dairy, if you wish to eat meat—unless the dairy product in question is a type that tends to stick in the mouth. The smallest quantity of meat or dairy in something renders it completely meat or dairy, for purpose of kashrut."

"Utensils that have come into contact with meat may not be used with dairy, and vice versa. Utensils that have come into contact with non-kosher food may not be used with kosher food. This applies only where the contact occurred while the food was hot," Billy read from the book. "The Yiddish words fleishik, milchik, pareve and treyf—meat, dairy, neutral and non-kosher are commonly used to describe food or utensils that fall into those categories."

Billy sighed. "Well, we are going to have some interesting talks tonight—but back on track. A utensil becomes the status of the kosher food that was cooked or eaten off it and then transmits that status to the next food cooked or eaten off it. This transmission of kosher status is only applicable in the presence of heat. Stovetops and sinks routinely become non-kosher, because they naturally come into contact with meat and dairy products.

"It is therefore necessary to use dishpans when cleaning dishes and to use separate rests and trivets when placing things on the stovetop. Dishwashers either must have separate dish racks or must go through a cycle in-between meat and dairy loads. Zack, apparently, kasher means to make kosher, or maybe neutral—because here it says routine laundering kashers items like towels and potholders. You need separate ones for meat and dairy, as Kim said."

"Grape products made by non-Jews may not be eaten," Trini said. "This is because there is a law against using products of idolatry. Use of wines and other grape products made by non-Jews is prohibited. Whole grapes aren't a problem, nor are whole grapes in fruit cocktails. This rule, mostly only affects wine and grape juice. So, fruit drinks and fruit-flavoured drinks need to be checked for grape juice. Some baking powders are not kosher because they are made with cream of tartar, which is a by-product of wine making."

They all looked at each other, rising and replacing the books as the bell went for end of lunch.

"Tonight is either going to be a disaster or decent," said Billy.

"Which are you betting on?" Zack said.

"Disaster."

~*~

**Angel Grove—Wasserman Residence**

Purple flames shimmered on the wall as Adira teleported into her room, hurrying to get dressed for synagogue and dinner before the lighting of the candles. She hurriedly pulled her hair back into a ponytail, pulling on a purple blouse and denim skirt, plus her butterfly anklestraps. Adira looked at her hair once more and then exited her room, sliding down the banisters.

Her mother frowned at her but turned to the candles, lighting them in silence.

"Mom? Are you and Hank going to have babies?"

"Adira, what kind of question is that? We don't even know if we're going to get married yet, why would we be determining if babies are in the equation?" said Menorah.

"It's something that you should figure out," said Adira. "After all, if one of you wants babies and the other doesn't, then it might be messy."

Menorah sighed, turning to her daughter. "Adira, we are just going to dinner. We have quite a bit to discuss, namely the intermeshing of our religions and practices. I hope religion doesn't force us out of a relationship, but it very well may. If we all think we can work through the religious customs, we can sort out the other questions. The most important question is whether they can accommodate our requirements of the Law."

"What about my basement?" Adira said, pouting.

Menorah sighed again. "I don't know, Adira. You may end up having to pack away all your weapons."

"Oh, brilliant," said Adira, the sarcasm evident. However, she tucked away her thoughts as she and her mother went to synagogue, focusing her attention on the service, trying very hard to not think about the planned dinner. This at least she succeeded in, but once they were in the car, heading for the restaurant, her worries resurfaced.

Finally, her mother jerked the car to a stop and looked at Adira. "Adira, calm down!" she said. "I can't drive with you over-analysing everything." Adira nodded, her mouth snapping shut. The rest of the ride was made in silence and at five to seven, they pulled into the parking lot, where they met Hank and Billy. Introductions were quickly made and they made their way into the restaurant.

Billy noted the table was set with a clean white cloth and that almost as soon as they were seated that two loaves of bread were set on the table.

"Here are your menus," said the waiter, before disappearing.

"Who runs this restaurant?" asked Billy, curiously.

"The owner is a Jew," said Adira, smiling. "However, everyone employed is not Jewish. That's because at certain times of the year, Jews are not permitted to work. No work is done on Shabbat, so Mom and I go out to dinner, rather than having pre-prepared food." They returned their attention to the menus and ordered their dinner, before Menorah quietly said a prayer.

"That was the Kiddush," said Menorah. "It is said every Shabbat, before dinner and at Saturday midday. Usually the father should say it, but he died." She cut the hallah, giving a piece to everyone. "Normally, you have hallah with the dinner; but here, you have a piece before dinner, but only a piece—since we have not eaten since an hour after noon, to make us appreciate the dinner more."

"Oh," said Hank. "Billy, have you made a decision?"

"Yes," said Billy, startling himself. "Wasserman? Adira Wasserman? Yeah, why not? It'd be fun."

"I'm going to get you for that, Cranston," Adira said as their dinners arrived, though she smiled. "You'd better watch out."

Ignoring the byplay, Hank continued. "Billy has told me about the laws about food and the extensions and we think we can handle that. This thing of not working, what do you mean?"

"The laws say we are not permitted to work at certain times and on certain holidays," said Menorah. "On those days, we are usually celebrating the day by attending synagogue services or in other ways. Adira and I usually do absolutely nothing if we can help it with regards to work; we have meals and snacks prepared in advance and unless we can't for some reason, we just kick around."

"But what about homework or projects?" asked Billy.

"Those I do," said Adira, looking unhappy. "If I don't do those, I'll get into big trouble at school and the excuse of an observance doesn't seem to cut it, unfortunately; we have twenty-six observances; one occurring once a month and another once a week. But I deal."

"So the wedding is on, then," said Menorah, to which she received three nods.

"There's so much to plan," said Adira.

"Actually, Adira, there isn't," said Menorah. "We decided we didn't want anything fancy the second time around; we've been through it once already and that was enough. Besides, where would we get married? Church or synagogue? A quiet City Hall wedding solves those problems."

"Fine," said Adira.

Billy had remained silent, due to nerves, but finally felt compelled to ask. "Where would we live after the wedding?"

"That is a good question," said Hank. "Would you mind if I made a list?" he said to Menorah and Adira, who nodded for him to proceed. "Well, on our side, Billy needs a garage for his laboratory and I need an office for my work as the head of every Wally's food store in California. What about yours?"

"I need a large basement for my weapons," Adira said.

Hank's jaw dropped. "Weapons? Uh, never mind, I don't think I want to know. What about you, Menorah?"

"A large kitchen is very essential when cooking to the requirements of the Law," she said. "I would like a house with a master bedroom with personal toilet and bathroom, though; we don't have one now."

"We need a basement, triple garage, large kitchen, master bedroom with toilet and bathroom, an office, three more bedrooms, another toilet and bathroom, dining room and rec room," said Hank, looking at his list. "Something tells me we'll need a new house."

"That is a logical deduction," said Billy. The waiter cleared their plates away and Menorah leaned in close to Billy and Hank.

"I work in real estate. You both come over Monday and we'll show you the houses that Adira and I think would be best. Then I can give you an estimation of what your house would bring on the market. As for the new house, I think we might be talking about eight hundred thousand dollars."

"Can't we do that now?" Adira said.

"Well, if that's alright with you?" Menorah said, looking at Billy and Hank, who shrugged.

"Certainly," said Hank. "Just follow our car."

~*~

Saturday, October 27th, 1984.

**The Power Chamber**

The five teens were in the Power Chamber, receiving an important debrief from Zordon.

"The Green and Purple Rangers are under an evil spell, Rangers," said Zordon. "You had raised this idea before and after studying the battles, the only conclusion is that they are enspelled. You know that if you have the Power and go rogue, the Power will be stripped from you. If you are enspelled, then the Power stays with you."

"Right," said Kim. "So how do we break the spell?"

"For now, you can only break the spell on the Green Ranger," said Zordon. "If the Sword of Darkness that he carries is destroyed, then the spell over him shall be likewise be destroyed."

"What about the Purple Ranger?" said Billy, ever practical.

"Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing holding the spell over her, Rangers," said Zordon. "By adding the Green Ranger to our team, we may learn how to best free the Purple Ranger. You must make every endeavour to destroy the Sword of Darkness."

"We will, Zordon," the Rangers promised.

"Now go, Rangers. Rita has sent down Goldar, Scorpina, Purple Ranger and Green Ranger. You will need the Zords."

"It's Morphin Time!" shouted Jason.

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!"

"Saber-toothed Tiger!"

"Tyrannosaurus!"

~*~

**Eclipsing MegaZord**

Calling upon the MegaZord, they faced off the four opponents in downtown Angel Grove. Unbeknownst to them, below them Bulk and Skull were in a bus, trying to get away from the mayhem and destruction. They had better things to think about—Rita had come down on her flying bicycle and struck up a conversation.

"Are you ready to give up?" she said.

"No!" Red Ranger shouted.

"Jason, you are a fool! You cannot hope to stand against me and win!" Rita said. She laughed, evil and darkness in her voice.

"We'll never surrender to you!" said Pink Ranger.

"Goldar! Proceed with stage three of the Rangers' destruction!" Rita said.

Goldar bent over, picking up a bus; the same bus that Bulk and Skull were using to get away. The two of them clung to each other and yammered in fright as Goldar looked inside.

"Those are civilians!" Black Ranger said.

"Indeed!" Goldar said. "You know them quite well. I believe they're known as Bulk and Skull."

"Put them down!" said Yellow Ranger.

"Not until you have surrendered!" said Goldar.

"Grifforzer, put them down!" said Purple Ranger, crossing her kris and kampilan. "They are civilians, they are not part of this!"

"Here we go with the honour again," said Green Ranger to himself. He looked at Goldar. "Put them down, Goldar. The sooner you do, the sooner we can fight. Because she won't let up until you do."

"What?" said Goldar, a dangerous tone in his voice. "Are you turning against Rita?"

"No, you dimwit," said Purple Ranger. "We're rebelling against dishonour."

"What's going on?" said Blue Ranger.

"Seems Purple Ranger has begun spouting about honour," said Red Ranger. "Just watch, it's unbelievable."

"What honour?" Yellow Ranger said.

The others didn't respond.

"You cannot directly hurt the civilians until the Rangers are defeated," said Purple Ranger calmly, as if she were speaking to a slow-witted child. "In an attack, civilians are hurt, but that is natural and does not affect honour. But to directly attack a civilian is to breach the code of honour."

"You were going to slit the Pink Ranger's throat when in civilian form," said Goldar, growling. "And you killed that civilian. What had she done to you?"

"She attacked me," Purple Ranger said. "That constitutes a battle, in which I am allowed to kill her. As for the Pink Ranger, that is acceptable."

"How?" Goldar said.

"She made the choice to serve as a Ranger. Zordon cannot force her to continue as a Ranger, she may leave at any time," Purple Ranger said. "If we were not even allowed to fight the Rangers in civilian form, then Bandora would only ever send down a monster with Golems, for monsters must be fought in Ranger form. Once the Rangers are gone, we can do whatever we want with the civilians."

"But until then, they are not to be harmed," said Green Ranger. "That goes against the code of honour. So put the bus down, Goldar. Carefully."

"And if I don't?"

"Then we do not fight," said Green Ranger. "Purple Ranger will not and I will not. In fact, hand the bus over. I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you."

Goldar handed the bus over to the Green Ranger, who set it on the ground and watched it speed away as fast as it could. Then in a flash of light, the battle was transported to the beach, where battle commenced.

"_Now_ do you think you could defeat the Power Rangers?" Rita said.

"As you wish!" the four evil warriors chorused, before beginning to strike out at the MegaZord with their weapons. Sparks flew from the MegaZord, because for every three strikes they blocked, four hit. Still, they were holding their own, mostly. Rita then chose to begin the unnatural eclipse and the MegaZord's solar power began to diminish.

"This is not good," said Blue Ranger. "We're down five percent in solar energy absorption. If the solar eclipse continues, we'll be at a serious disadvantage soon!"

"Noted, Billy!" Red Ranger said. "Okay, we've got to focus on the Sword of Darkness!"

But they simply had no way to destroy the Sword, for they were too busy defending themselves from attacks.

"We're down to thirty percent power!" said Black Ranger.

"The eclipse is almost total!" said Blue Ranger.

"Jason, try the Power Sword! It should recharge the power cells!" Yellow Ranger said, a note of frantic hysteria entering her voice with good reason.

"We need the Power Sword!" Red Ranger said. Out of the sky came the Power Sword, which the MegaZord took with great haste. Now, the Rangers began to have a better fight, now blocking three strikes for every one that landed. Even so, with no more solar energy coming in and reserves diminishing rapidly, they knew they were going to lose the fight, for they did not have enough power left.

"Jason, I'm going to send all the non essential power to you," said Blue Ranger. "Hopefully it will be enough to halt the fight for an hour or two."

"Right, Billy!"

Scorpina lashed out with her tail, electrocuting them before Goldar and Green Ranger crossed swords and sent an energy bolt at them.

"We're almost dead," said Pink Ranger, managing to sound more calm than she felt.

"And now you are," retorted Purple Ranger, sending a bolt of energy from her hand. The MegaZord sparked and fried as the earth split into two. Then it simply toppled backwards, separating into the DinoZords, falling into the crevasse. The five Rangers fell out of the MegaZord, landing on the ground in a park near the beach, force demorphing due to safety parameters.

"What happened to the MegaZord?" said Zack as they got up in a hurry.

"Over there!" Jason said, leading the way to where they looked into the crevasse, seeing their Zords sink into the super hot magma amidst explosions. "Our Zords!"

"They're gone!" said Kimberly, her face streaked with tears.

"I can't believe it! It's like Rita destroyed a part of us!" said Zack, his tone one of stunned disbelief.

"They were always there when we needed them!" said Billy.

"Now they're gone!" Trini said, her voice choking on tears. "Just when we need them most!"

Back at the battle site, Goldar, Scorpina and Rita teleported back to the moon. Green and Purple Rangers exchanged nods and teleported off to their respective destinations.

~*~

**The Power Chamber**

"The Power Rangers are history," said Kimberly, pacing back and forth. "Without our Zords, how can we hope to beat Rita?"

"Patience, Kimberly," said Zordon. "All is not lost."

"How can we get the Zords back?" said Zack. "Seems pretty lost to me!"

"We can't give up," said Jason. He was quiet, but no less commanding. "We're the Power Rangers. The world needs us, or it's history."

"We need our Zords, Jase," Trini said. "If we don't have our Zords, then _we're_ history."

"Let's face it," Zack said, his face grim. "Those Rangers were Rita's trump card. She played it and it's a royal bloody flush!"

"Rangers, all is not lost!" Zordon repeated himself more forcefully this time and the Rangers looked at him. "We know how to free the Green Ranger. Also, we know who the Green Ranger is."

"Well, who is it?" said Jason.

"An acquaintance of yours, Jason," Zordon said. "Tommy Oliver." The Rangers looked at him, shock written on their faces.

"How do you know?" said Trini.

"An ancient prophecy foretold the saga of the Green Ranger," said Zordon. "It is rather complex, so bear with me. It goes as follows:

_The ancient dinosaur Powers,  
Held by humans, good and evil,  
Six Coins, yet seven warriors.  
Only two are the enemy,  
For a short time, battles will wage.  
Tommy Oliver will be freed  
From the hold of evil's dark spell.  
And only Purple remains to serve.  
Purple becomes Green, she will return,  
Forging the Rangers for all time.  
They are the Seven, first Chosen._

"That is the prophecy," said Zordon.

"And it couldn't tell us Purple Ranger's identity?" Kim said. "I hate prophecies."

"Well, at least we know the identity of the Green Ranger," said Billy. "We've got a lot more to work with than we had before."

"Go home for now, Rangers," said Zordon. "There is no more we can do. Do not approach Tommy openly; we do not wish to tip our hand too early." When they had departed, Alpha looked at him. "Begin work, Alpha Five. We must rescue the DinoZords."

~*~

**Angel Grove—Kwan Residence**

Trini sighed, closing her book. The stress of the past days was now catching up to her and for the first time in her life, she was terrified. Not the childish terror she had once had of fantasy monsters, nor the scariness of having to perhaps leave her friends. Pure terror, that came from knowing that Kimberly had been so close to death, that Goldar would have killed Jason, that Green Ranger would have done it had Purple Ranger done nothing, that this Amy Freeman was killed in front of her—and that she herself had died, only being revived through November's performing CPR and a surge of power from the Grid.

Trini understood all too well that there were always people out there who had it infinitely worse. She opened her book again, _A History of the Wizarding World_, finishing the section on Grindelwald. Trini had picked up the book at some deceased person's estate sale two years ago and thought it nothing more than an elaborately constructed fairy tale. With the advent of being a Ranger and then her encounter with the goblins, she had thought—and now knew—the book spoke of real things.

Trini wondered sometimes why no one ever came to pick the book up, for the book had given her the impression that if non-magical people had magical items, they would be recovered. No one had ever done so and she wasn't sure what to make of that. She closed the book, hiding it in her secret wall space. She did not feel up to reading about the next Dark Wizard. Now was the time to think about their situation.

They had to destroy the Sword of Darkness. At best, Rita would only send down the two Rangers. At worst, the Rangers, Goldar, Scorpina and Putties would be sent down. Trini raised her communicator to her mouth, having formed the simplest strategy she could.

"Jason, I have a plan," she said.

"What is it?" Jason said.

"It will only work if we can get them alone, but you take him on and destroy the Sword of Darkness. The rest of us will have to take his friend on to give you a fighting chance," Trini said.

"You can present it to the others tomorrow," said Jason, his tone thoughtful. "But it sounds like it might just work. It's simple. Something would have to go majorly wrong for it to not work."

~*~

Sunday, October 28th, 1984.

**Rita's Moon Palace—Throne Room**

Rita smiled, sending Baboo and Squatt running for cover. "Now, to give the Green Ranger his ancient Zord. With his own Zord, he will be able to destroy the Rangers!"

"We haven't seen this Zord in thousands of years!" Squatt said.

"What if it's been damaged or something?" Baboo said, following Squatt's line of thought.

"It will not have been damaged!" said Goldar. "Zords in dormancy are most often hidden away and cannot easily be damaged! Just as the other Zords have their hiding places, so does the DragonZord. Now, be silent!"

Rita threw out her hand, fingers held together in a loose pattern, watching red light stream from her hand and fall into the sea beside the business district of Angel Grove. They watched as the sea began to boil and churn as the DragonZord rose from the sea before Rita dismissed the picture and then called for Tommy and Adira to begin the fight.

~*~

Angel Grove—Business District

Trini had just finished explaining her plan to the team when their communicators beeped.

"Rangers! Rita has called DragonZord to battle in the business district. You must go there and prevent both the DragonZord and the Rangers from causing untold destruction!" Zordon said.

"We're on it," said Jason. "It's Morphin Time!"

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!"

"Saber-toothed Tiger!"

"Tyrannosaurus!"

They landed atop a building, watching the DragonZord walk in from the sea, indiscriminately destroying whatever was in his path.

"_Dragon Caesar_?" said Purple Ranger in disbelief, landing before the Rangers. "What can he do, Green Ranger?"

"Let's find out!" said Green Ranger, putting the Dragon Dagger to his mouthplate, playing a haunting tune.

DragonZord's hands suddenly loaded with missiles, launching them directly at the six Rangers. Purple Ranger did the smart thing and back flipped off the building, leaving the other Rangers to get shot off and land at Purple Ranger's feet.

"Why are you doing this?" said Black Ranger, summoning his Power Axe.

"Poor little Ranger," said Purple Ranger. "You don't understand. Rita has won. You can accept that you are defeated... or die now."

"We choose death," said Yellow Ranger, venom in her voice.

"So be it," said Purple Ranger. "Green Ranger! Set Dragon Caesar to just destroy and join me!"

And with that, battle was joined. With their minds acutely aware of DragonZord's path of destruction, each Ranger on the side of Light went for the Green Ranger and the Sword of Darkness. However, together the Green and Purple Rangers were proving to be nearly unstoppable and sent them flying every which way.

"We have to stop the DragonZord," said Blue Ranger. "Jason, what should we do, limited as we are?"

Red Ranger was unable to answer, for his Power Morpher began to glow, as did the others. The Green and Purple Rangers stepped forward cautiously, only to see their bodies dissolve into streaks of lights and disappear.

"They're gone!" Green Ranger said.

"After them!" said Purple Ranger. And so they followed.

~*~

**Breaking The Spell**

The DinoZords had returned to the Rangers—it seemed that the hot magma had contributed somehow to the recharging and repairing of the Zords.

"Let's form up the MegaZord!" the Rangers said, ascending to their returned Zords.

Green Ranger summoned the DragonZord in response, waiting to attack. Barely giving the MegaZord time to steady itself, he attacked, sending DragonZord hard and fast. The MegaZord sidestepped the attack, grabbing DragonZord by the tail and twirling, sending the Zord crashing into a set of hills, decimating them.

"It's at times like these that I'm glad that the Power restores everything that has been damaged to its normal condition when we win," said Pink Ranger.

"It's never restored a life, Kim," said Yellow Ranger. "I should know."

"I know, Trini. I know," said Pink Ranger, her tone gentle.

"Give it up, Tommy!" Red Ranger said.

"Never!" Green Ranger said.

"Then I'm sorry it has to be this way!"

Red Ranger exited the MegaZord, landing several feet away from the two evil Rangers. Withdrawing his sword, he rushed them, ducking a blow from Purple Ranger and then began to fight in earnest, dodging as many strikes as he gave out.

"This has to end!" Red Ranger said.

"It will. With your death!" Green Ranger said, playing the tune on his dagger once more, this time causing his shield to glow with green light. Purple Ranger was at his side, watching Red Ranger. She was far more wary than Green Ranger.

Red Ranger fired off a few shots with his Power Blaster, which did no harm except to himself, as they were reflected off Green Ranger. He growled, drawing his hand across his sword blade, letting red light inflame it.

"THIS ENDS!" Red Ranger cried, throwing the sword at Green Ranger and readying the Power Blaster. His Power Sword knocked the Sword of Darkness into the air and the two Rangers back a few steps. Red Ranger took careful aim, shooting off a powerful blast, which incinerated the sword. Green Ranger fell to the ground as sickly green light rose from his morphed body, leaving Tommy behind.

Purple Ranger fell by his side. "Tommy?" she said, her voice worried. "Tommy?"

"Purple Ranger," he said, struggling to sit up.

Taking a chance, she hissed in a low voice to him, before raising her voice. "Are you okay?" she said. Tommy managed a nod and satisfied, she teleported out. Tommy promptly collapsed to the grass again—it was evident he was not all right.

The five Rangers met up and demorphed together, before slowly approaching Tommy.

"You okay, Tommy?" said Jason.

"What's happening to me?" he said, dazed.

"You're no longer under Rita's power," said Jason, helping him stand.

As Tommy stood, the memories flooded him. "What have I _done_?" he said, suddenly feeling not worthy to meet Jason's calm gaze.

"What you did, you did under Rita's influence." Jason paused, then continued. "You own the Power now. Fight by our side, and we can defeat Rita."

"After everything that's happened?" Tommy exclaimed, without really meaning to say those words out loud.

"Tommy, we need you," said Jason.

However, Tommy was still uncertain and looked away, before Jason brought him back to reality with his next words.

"It's where you belong," Jason said, unconsciously extending a hand to Tommy. "Will you join us, Tommy?"

Tommy met his eyes and hesitated briefly, before shaking his hand.

~*~

**Rita's Moon Palace—Throne Room**

Adira, her helmet under her arm, presented herself to Rita. "My Empress," she said, kneeling before her. "You called."

"Tell me, Adira, where is Green Ranger?" Rita said.

"He is on the side of Light, after Red Ranger destroyed the Sword of Darkness," Adira said.

"Why did you let that happen?" Goldar said, stepping forward with his sword.

"I did _not_ 'let it happen'. By the time that I or even the Green Ranger could have managed an adequate response that would have kept the Sword of Darkness intact," Adira said, her eyes stormy, "it was too late. Jason had already destroyed it. I still am in your service, victory is not yet beyond your grasp, my Empress."

"Victory will be short in coming if Tommy—as he undoubtedly will—tells them of your identity!" Rita said.

"He will not," said Adira. "When I made sure he was alright, I hissed a warning to him. If he told of my identity or anything of me that could be used to determine my identity, I would make sure that the Rangers died by his hand."

~*~

**The Power Chamber**

An hour later, the six teens now on the side of Light were in the Power Chamber. Zordon had shown them DragonZord in Fighting Mode: DragonZord, Mastodon, Triceratops and Saber-toothed Tiger united together. Tommy had been inducted, taken the three oaths and been given his green communicator.

"And now, Tommy, we must speak seriously. What do you know of the Purple Ranger?" Zordon said.

"What I know of her, I will not tell," said Tommy.

"Tommy, that information would help us!" said Kimberly.

"I know, Kim," said Tommy. "But if I tell anything of her, she will kill you all. She knows who each of you are in civilian identity. How easy would it be to come over to your house in the dead of night and slit your throats?"

"We have sensors," said Alpha.

"And don't you think that if Purple Ranger wanted to, she could fool the sensors?" said Tommy. "Purple Ranger is Rita's _last_ chance. Once she's lost Purple Ranger, she's lost everything. Purple Ranger is evil and wants Rita to succeed. So I do not tell to protect you all."

Jason held Tommy's gaze before nodding. "Fine. I can accept that. But do you think you alone can get her to our side?"

"I don't know," said Tommy. "I don't know. But I know this. Purple Ranger alone is going to be ten times worse than us two together. There is no Purple Power Coin. She draws her power direct from the Grid."

"A Trphi warrior?" Zordon said. "I had thought it could be, because of the prophecy, but it seemed too far-fetched."

"Yes," said Tommy. "That's what Rita called her. Said they'd been common millennia ago, but had greatly reduced in number over the centuries. With power direct from the Grid, she could probably kill us all with a simple wave of her hand."

"Then why doesn't she?" said Trini.

"That's not honourable," said Tommy, feeling a wave of exhaustion pass over him. "Maybe..." He didn't finish; too exhausted to even resist the exasperated looks the Rangers gave him.

"Imagine: with her on our side, we could defeat Rita once and for all!" said Zack.

"But first we have to _get_ her on our side," Jason said.

And with that sobering thought pointed out, the Rangers departed the Power Chamber.


	3. A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings

I updated late, as my mother died a month ago. I do not know when the next chapter will be coming, as after my mother died, I ceased writing. While I am picking it up again, it may take time to come back into the swing of things.

~*~

**Disclaimer:** As said in Chapter One: everyone but me owns everything that this is based on.

~*~

**Meledon Phoenix: Prophecies, Pack and Pizza  
Chapter Three: A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings**

~*~

**To Dream The Future, Part II**

The fire still blazed and the pentagon still held, though now inside it there was a doe.

The flames of the fire were banked without warning and then died out. The pegasus whinnied, the hooves beating the ground.

The lion and the wolf looked about in the darkness and growled as another member of the Felidae family was scented on the breeze.

The snake wound its way up the dog's leg as the dog crouched down, ready to spring.

Tense moments passed before the Felidae approached, revealing itself to be a cheetah. The cheetah eyed them all, circling them several times but then moved off to the far side of the clearing.

~*~

Tuesday, July 24th, 1984.

**The Third Prophecy**

**I cannot **_**stand**_** iambic tetrameter,** Danger said, sitting up.

**Can't say I'm too fond of it,** Remus said, leaning over to kiss her. **But it did bring me you, in an odd sense.**

**Sweet man. Come on, let's write this down.**

~*~

_A war returns from ancient past,  
So say the first, as will the last.  
The truth will grieve; then seek the girl,  
Whose eyes with coloured power swirl.  
Seek the Cheetah with unknown,  
Her power, not age, is what's grown.  
The cubs of your Pack number four,  
With star, wolf, flower, truth, warrior.  
On a babe may her mind transfix,  
But she cannot make number six.  
A war returns from ancient past,  
So say the first, as will the last.  
The first bear Coins forged in despair,  
The seventh, no Coin, for she's rare.  
Friends they'll be, though magic are few,  
But not until they three renew.  
Then seize your chance, before it flies,  
Be prepared to say your goodbyes.  
The truth will grieve; then seek the girl,  
Whose eyes with coloured power swirl._

"I had a dream last night—a continuation of one I've had before," Danger said. "There's a pentagon formed by animals—a dog, a lion, a snake, a pegasus and a wolf. Inside the pentagon are a wolf cub, a fox cub, a kitten and a doe. They're being guarded, it seems. From what, I'm not sure."

"Enemies?" Sirius said.

"Last night, a cheetah approached the pentagon, circled it five times and then went off to the far side of the clearing," Danger said. "And I woke up with this prophecy."

"Could this Cheetah of your dream and prophecy be Lily?" Narcissa said.

"Danger, would you say the dog in your dream looked like Padfoot?" Sirius said.

Danger reflected and then nodded. "Exactly like him. You don't think..."

"I'm willing to bet that your dream represents us—cubs too—in Animagus form," Sirius said. "The cheetah can't be Lily. Her form would be a tiger."

"I'd forgotten that," Remus said. "So it isn't Lily."

"With star, wolf, flower, truth, warrior..." Aletha said. "Sirius, Remus, Narcissa are obvious, Aletha means truth, so truth is me, and warrior is Danger. So I'm going to grieve? And when I'm done, we 'seek the girl whose eyes with coloured power swirl'."

"So we have to find a girl with power and a girl who's a cheetah Animagus," Remus said. "And there's someone... a potential sixth Pack-adult, who can't join us."

"How are we to keep track of that?" Sirius said. "And what's this about a war returning from ancient past? And the first and the last? What's that mean?"

"We'll gain friends, though few of them will have magic," Narcissa said. "But we need to wait on them and then take our chance. I hate Divination!"

"I hate iambic tetrameter," Danger said.

"I hate prophecies that aren't simple," Sirius said.

"I hate getting impossible tasks," Aletha said.

"I hate feeling like I'm missing something," Remus said.

There was a pause.

"Are we done with the hating session?" Remus said in his best alpha-male voice. Four nods greeted his statement. "Let's get on with it."

As the Pack-adults talked the prophecy over in the kitchen, the Pack-cubs slept.

In one of the rooms upstairs, an owl swooped down upon a stack of letters, picking them up and flying away, a destination firmly set in her mind.

The missing letters would not be noted for some time.

~*~

**Pai Zhua Academy**

All was silent.

The temple grounds of the Pai Zhua academy were empty, save for Master Mao, the master of the academy.

This was unusual, but Master Mao had learned to trust his instincts. He did not understand why, but he knew the academy needed to be deserted this week. So the students had left and now he stood unmoving. It would happen; he just needed to wait.

Energy began to crackle through the air, but he paid it no heed. It built up, crackling with yellow strands before it exploded and a young woman dropped to the ground. A cylindrical piece of willow, ten and a quarter inches long clattered to the ground.

The woman got to her feet with precise, slow movements, meeting the eyes of Master Mao.

"Master Mao," she said, bowing to the Samoan master, who was dressed in the orange uniform accorded to that rank. She knew from painful experience that it did not hinder him.

"Show me."

The woman extended her right arm, showing her inner forearm, where a black tattoo stood out starkly against her pale skin. Three scalene triangles were joined such that the apex of the two lower triangles merged into the above triangles, the apex of all three triangles aligned exactly. Each triangle was shorter than the previous. The overall look was akin to having your arm clawed—hence the reason it was the symbol for a member of the Order of the Claw.

"Welcome, Lily Evans."

"What is the date, Master Mao?"

If he thought this was an unusual question, he did not show it. "July 24th, 1984. It is a Tuesday, ten after eight in the morning."

Master Mao did not fail to notice that this pronouncement made Lily pale.

"Come with me," he said.

Lily followed him, pausing only to retrieve her wand.

When they were settled, he looked at her. "What happened, Lily?"

Lily explained her story as completely as she could, once again grateful that Master Mao took what she said and was satisfied with it. She knew he knew she was never forthcoming with the whole truth, but she had never yet outright lied to him. At times, Lily figured it was that fact that let her get away with her half-truths and evasiveness.

She had met Master Mao when she was four years old. He had trained her in the way of kung fu—even when she was in Hogwarts, he had still trained her. She had thought it would have to stop, but Master Mao had decreed that she could learn all summer, keep up with her training during school and every so often, be pulled out of school in order that she could be taught more. Thus, it had been as he said.

She had once asked why he, a master based in America—for reasons he would never elaborate on—would come all the way to England to train a cub, as he called his students until they had graduated. He had just said she would find out in time.

She hadn't yet. Not even when she had been marked with the symbol of the Order of the Claw.

"Do you think you can go back?"

"I do not think so, Master Mao."

"Then you are welcome to stay here and learn more as you decide what to do."

~*~

**Los Angeles—Noxet Bank**

Lily took a deep breath, standing in her quarters. Following a shower, she had changed into a yellow top and jeans that she had conjured, added a jacket and charmed her hair brown. The door was locked, so she would not be disturbed. Picking up a glass from the bedside cabinet, she touched her wand to it, murmuring the incantation for a Portkey. She looked at it and shrugged.

"Well, here goes nothing," Lily said, activating the Portkey. She felt a jerk behind her navel, the world rushing by before she felt a sharp hit which she seemed to rebound off. The Portkey dumped her on a floor. She had just enough time to get up and fix her attire to ensure her identity remained secret before a goblin opened the door.

"My apologies," he said, his smile revealing a lot of teeth. "We could not have you appearing in the lobby, so your Portkey was redirected here. Do you wish to make a withdrawal, or do you need to speak with someone about your account?"

"I need to speak with someone," Lily said.

"Very good," the goblin said. "Come with me. My name is Gorignak."

A few minutes later, Lily was in a conference room across from Gorignak.

"I understand that my dealings will be kept in strict confidence," Lily said.

"We pride ourselves on our confidentiality," Gorignak said.

Lily nodded. "My name is Lily Potter. I had a vault but—"

"You are not sure if it may have been cancelled because of your disappearance," Gorignak said. He waved his hand and a bowl and silver knife appeared.

Lily needed no prompting to slice her palm and let the blood drip into the bowl before the wound abruptly healed. After a few seconds, a key and a piece of paper materialised, which Gorignak picked up.

"You have one personal vault, with several notations attached. It seems Gringotts refused to release its contents because there was no verifiable proof of your death, nor had sufficient time passed. At the time of your disappearance, this vault contained two million, three hundred and fifty-eight thousand, one hundred and seventy Galleons. Since then, the vault has accrued five hundred and eighty-one thousand, three hundred and ninety-two Galleons in interest."

He handed Lily her key.

"I'd like the transactions on that vault made private," Lily said.

"It is done," Gorignak said. "Now, you also have access to the Potter Family Vault—"

"I would rather not speak of that; the transactions would be tracked," Lily said. "My own vault will be enough for now."

"Very good," Gorignak said. "Do you require anything else?"

Lily considered. "As you have likely surmised, I have been out of the loop for the past fifty-four months. Can you arrange for back copies of the Daily Prophet to be sent to me? I need to catch up on what I've missed. I also would like to withdraw a thousand Galleons and two thousand dollars."

"It will be done," Gorignak said, clicking his fingers. A small bag—charmed to be lightweight and bottomless—appeared on the table. "There is your money. You should be aware of a couple of events, though."

"Go on," Lily said, pocketing the bag.

"You were pregnant at the time of your disappearance. I suspect you are not now. Harry James Potter, your son, was born on July 31st, 1980 in circumstances similar to your disappearance," said Gorignak. "Fifteen months later, he defeated You-Know-Who just moments after You-Know-Who killed James Potter, your husband."

"How?" Lily said. Her voice broke on the word and she ducked her head for a few moments to recover equilibrium.

"No one knows. The Killing Curse hit your son and rebounded on Voldemort. Your son survived with only a lightning bolt scar," Gorignak said.

"Thank you," Lily said, a little too stunned to say more. Seeing that their business was at an end, Gorignak escorted Lily from his office.

Lily made her way out of Noxet Bank, her mind a whirl of confusion and pain. None of this made sense. She was four and a half years out of time, she had a son who'd done the impossible and her husband was dead. She didn't know what she was supposed to do now—sure, she had known it was smart to be silent and unseen until she understood more of what had happened, but what point was there now? There was nothing to go home to now.

"Who the fuck did I piss off?" Lily said, wiping at her eyes. She wasn't going to cry, not here at least—perhaps not ever. It wasn't like tears would do her any good. "Why me? I fought Voldemort, I was a good daughter, I _tried_ to be a good sister and got nothing for all my efforts... what the hell did I do wrong to deserve this shit?!"

_You've just spent two minutes bitching and solved nothing. Get a grip, girl._

Lily was about to snap back at her unwelcome thought, but nodded. She could wallow in her misery and waste even more of her time or she could do something productive. The choice was easy: Lily pulled up her Occlumency walls, building a wall around the emotions threatening to spill forth. As the wall came up, building in strength, Lily regained her emotional and mental equilibrium and she began to compose a list of things she needed, clothing being at the top.

After purchasing a Muggle style purse with lightweight, antitheft and storage charms, Lily went shopping.

~*~

**Paul Visits Trini**

Trini observed the results from her four major changes. One change that she'd had to learn to live with; one change that gave her what she wanted, albeit not exactly how she had intended; one change that would give them the extra edge needed—maybe and the last change, well, that was borne from pure necessity.

"It goes well?" Paul said, entering her yellow styled room.

"Well enough. Alex's advice on how to influence people was appreciated," Trini said. "Though I'm not sure I like him. I only work with him when creating prophecies, but even that grates on my nerves. I do have one question." She brought up a picture. "I am sure I did nothing to affect that."

"In order: Alex is unique and likes to play with things to achieve what he thinks are the best outcomes." Paul grinned at Trini's exasperated sigh of acknowledgment. "You didn't do anything, nor did I. Keep an eye on it—it's things like that that'll tend to screw you over."

~*~

Saturday, July 28th, 1984.

**Letters To Lily**

The beach was deserted—until Lily Apparated into the vicinity, feeling the sand beneath her heels. She sat down to rest. Her mind went back to the scene that had taken place yesterday evening.

_"You have done well, Lily," Master Mao said. "There is no more to teach you—for now. Take this."_ _Somehow that 'for now' seemed all too ominous._ _"Thank you," Lily said, accepting her new uniform. She looked down, seeing yellow instead of orange. "Master Mao?"_ _"You will understand in time," Master Mao said. "But you have earned the title of Master, do not doubt that. You had earned it when you gained the Mark of the Claw. You were not ready for it, though you are now."_ _"But—"_ _"Your fears are understandable. You are capable." Master Mao looked at her. "But your place is not here. You know that as well as I."_ _She'd packed her stuff up with little fanfare and Apparated away._

Something was pulling at her, a sense of urgency, of being _needed_. It had been happening since Saturday night, but Lily had held off, waiting for Master Mao to complete her testing. Standing, Lily began to do more line-of-sight Apparations, following the sense. All in all, it was rather like a game of Hot and Cold.

_Except that it's only been getting hotter,_ Lily thought. _I thought coming to the beach would give me privacy for any needed magic, not send me Apparating north._

It was still dark—although starting to dawn—a few hours later when Lily Apparated onto a beach, feeling the sense leave abruptly. She sat down, shaking her head.

"I wonder if that magical storm did anything to me," she said. "I've just spent all night Apparating because some little part of me wants to go to..." she looked around, finding a sign with the town name on it, "...Angel Grove and—I should feel tired."

She didn't, though. Lily felt like she'd woken up after a good night's sleep. With another sigh, Lily got up to walk into town. But she was interrupted by an owl, which flew down to her, bearing what seemed like a package. Taking it from the owl, Lily noted it was a bundle of letters.

"I'm sorry I don't have any water or treats for you..." she said. The owl hooted and left her to her letters and with some trepidation, Lily moved through the envelopes, arranging them by the date written on the front. She was able to recognise three of the handwritings—Sirius, Remus and Aletha's—but the other one was strange to her.

Making herself comfortable, Lily began to read.

_I don't know why I haven't done this earlier._

A letter from Aletha was the first.

_...Sirius and Remus were there in Diagon Alley, but they haven't seemed inclined to talk about what happened. So, Harry then. He's having a few nightmares—nothing unexpected, given what happened. Now with you and James both gone, Sirius, Remus and I, we're taking care of him. It's what you and James would have wanted. It seems strange, writing to you and not to James, but we know he's dead. You... there's still hope._ _I miss you..._

Sirius' first letter was next.

_...you're not going to believe this, Lily. You remember my cousin, Narcissa, who married Lucius? She was a Death Eater as were Lucius and many others. In return for staying with Draco and anonymity, she turned in every Death Eater. I've dissolved her marriage contract. You know that means she's my ward now. Narcissa seemed sincere enough in her wishes initially and every day since, she has proven my faith in her was correct..._

Lily shuffled the envelopes and nodded. The handwriting on some was elegant—a good sign of a pureblood upbringing. Comparing dates, she frowned. Aletha's letter had been early November, but Sirius' was late February, almost five months later.

August of 1982 produced a letter from Remus.

_...I met a Muggle woman, who goes by Danger. Her magic was latent, activated by a great shock in August this year when she found her parents dead. Her magic isn't quite conventional—she's apparently a true-dreamer and a werewolf tamer..._

Lily blinked. "And they call her Danger? I can just imagine how that happened—approaching a rabid werewolf is the height of idiocy!" She turned back to the letter.

_...she has a sister, Neenie. We all sort of banded together—Danger and I with Neenie, Aletha and Sirius with Harry and Narcissa with Draco in November of last year. We even got a Muggle place in Oxford last December. We haven't got anyone else—did Sirius tell you Peter turned out to be a Death Eater?—so we figured we might as well stick together..._

Lily smiled as Remus went on to tell her about the weddings before turning to Narcissa's letter of January 1983.

_...the children are fine, though rather exhausting. Aletha's a Healer now, Remus and Danger work at a bookstore in Muggle London and Sirius is an Auror. For now, I am taking care of the children, though the others have been able to arrange our schedules so that I am not always the sole caregiver—we want them to know and love us all..._

_Sensible,_ Lily thought, reading on.

_...and so, we became a Pack. As Pack, one of the things we hold true to is to honour the parents of the children we care for. We will teach them who and what they were, so that their children remember the parents who loved them and made sacrifices for them..._

The next letter was written on one piece of pink paper, in Sirius' familiar scrawl.

_It's a Girl!  
Sirius Black and Aletha Freeman-Black  
Are proud to announce  
The birth of their first child  
Meghan Lily Black  
On 1 June, 1983  
At 4:13 pm_

Lily blinked back a few tears and smiled. "After all the times I yelled at you, you would still..."

Remus wrote next, in October.

_...and now the cubs are beginning lessons—not that they actually stick with them for more than ten minutes before running off. Still, it's a way to teach them even some small bit. They're doing really well, Lils. I wish you could be here. You'd be so proud..._

The seventh and final letter was from Aletha, dated May 1984 and contained an issue of _Witch Weekly_.

_The marked story—Sirius wrote it._

By the end of _Hannerlore's Descent_, Lily was quite impressed with Sirius' writing ability. He could captivate the reader in just a few short words.

Now that the pleasant distraction was over, Lily folded the letters up and resumed her walk into town, sensing that her heart felt lighter at knowing something of her son. Right now, her plan was to purchase a house.

~*~

Tuesday, July 31st, 1984.

**Angel Grove**

Lily had soon found out that this town was actually a city, courtesy of a tourist's guide. The city—Angel Grove—covered a total area of six hundred and twenty-three square miles. Angel Grove boasted its own National Forest, part of which was known as Angel Grove Park. The National Forest also bordered on the Mojave Desert, where a settlement of Cherokee Indians lived as their ancestors had.

Lily stood up from the grass, clearing her mind. In smooth movement, she slipped into her chosen katas for the morning, running through them with her customary grace. If she saw she was drawing an audience, she didn't acknowledge it.

"She's really good," an Asian boy said.

"Far better than us," a Mexican boy said. "Sha!"

"What?" an African-American girl said.

"Go poke her."

"No. She's bus—"

The girl jumped back, dragging the Asian boy with her as the offender found himself with a bo in his solar plexus.

"What if I poke you?" Lily said.

"Um... I didn't mean..."

"What are your names?"

"Rocky DeSantos, ma'am," Rocky said. "That's Aisha Campbell and Adam Park."

Lily backed off, nodding to the three. "You were watching?"

"Yes, ma'am," Aisha said. "We do martial arts too."

"Show me," Lily said, tossing her bo aside and falling into a ready stance.

Rocky had just enough time to approximate the stance before Lily was on him, kicks and punches flying. Her rapid attack had him on the defence as he backed up, giving up more ground than was wise.

"Help me!" Rocky said, blocking the attacks as fast as he could. Adam and Aisha nodded, attacking Lily from each side. Lily's mind was working in overdrive as she analysed their proficiency, noting where they could stand to improve, all the while adapting her tactics to a more defensive approach to urge her opponents to expend their energy in attacks that she was more than capable of blocking or avoiding.

Dropping into a split to avoid a kick, Lily threw herself to the side and into a handstand before jumping up and blocking a flurry of punches before Adam and Rocky grabbed her arms.

"Not good," Lily said, noting their uneven footing.

"We know," they said.

"I meant for you," Lily said, dropping into a split as she yanked her arms to the front. Caught off guard and off balance, Adam and Rocky crashed into each other and dropped to the ground. Lily hadn't forgotten about Aisha, who had hung back to let the boys neutralise Lily. Aisha knew it was sort of dirty to come at Lily from the back, but was doing it anyway—to her folly. Lily leaned back, grabbed Aisha's waist and lifted her up and over, letting her fall down on top of the boys.

Lily stood up, brushing her clothes off. She noted various slight injuries that she would have to invite them in to fix up, but first the sparring session needed to be concluded.

"Concede?"

~*~

**Introductions**

"I thought you three had injuries," Lily said, holding a first aid kit. "I saw them myself."

"We don't get injured when we spar," Rocky said.

"We do when we don't spar with Adam," Aisha said. "Remember, I got that cut when it was just you and me?"

"Adam's our good luck charm," Rocky said, grinning at Adam, who blushed and ducked his head.

_He's using magic in a specific, directed way; it's got to be. Either that or potions—and I doubt he would have so willingly fought if he had potions on his person._

"Do you believe in magic?" Lily said, her sharp eyes picking up the way all three of them exchanged wary glances.

_That seals it._

Lily whipped out her wand, shouting, "Stupefy!"

"Protego!"

The red light splashed against the invisible wall of the shield.

"You're a witch?" Adam said.

"What, my Stunning Spell didn't confirm that?"

Adam smiled at the sarcasm. "Who are you?" he said, keeping his wand trained on Lily.

Lily sighed—after reading the Daily Prophet's major articles concerning her and her family, she estimated she would be pretty well known. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me," Adam said, his tone darkening.

"I want your word you three will not speak of me."

"I don't know if we can give that."

"My name is Lily Potter."

To his credit, Adam displayed no reaction. "Prove it."

"You know her, Adam?" Rocky said.

"I know who she claims to be."

"I swear on my magic that I am Lily Cecelia Potter," Lily said, a flash of magic emanating from her. She cast a quick Levitation Charm and smiled a little at Adam's stunned expression. "How much longer do you have before you are missed? And would you like something to drink?"

"We have to call my mother at about one o'clock," Aisha said. "Drinks would be great."

"That gives us... about four hours," Adam said.

"Can you teach us?" Rocky said as Lily summoned the pitcher of lemonade she'd made and poured out drinks—it was obvious he'd been bursting to ask this for a while.

"Teach you martial arts?" Lily said. "You three seem to be quite good enough already."

"Knowing different disciplines will make us better fighters," Aisha said.

"And what is it supposed to teach you?"

"Discipline, respect for self and others—"

Lily cut them off. "Exactly. I will not teach you how to beat up someone else."

"It's not about beating others up," Rocky said. "We're not like that. You see, we compete in competitions and stuff and Adam and I want to start a dojo when we're old enough. Being better fighters will help us."

"Well. Maybe I will teach you, if you can arrange it with your parents."

Lily paused, thinking. The American wizarding world was quite different to England's, as Lily knew. America had a greater muggle/magical societal integration, which affected many of the functions that Lily had accepted in England. As she herself had seen, Noxet Bank branches could be accessed by both Muggle and magical people alike and thus employed human tellers—something she couldn't imagine Gringotts doing at all unless radical changes occurred.

"So when did you find out you were a wizard?" Lily said, looking at Adam.

"I was five," Adam said. "I broke my arm in my first karate lesson. Accidental magic healed that up, ten minutes later, the Mundanes—you would know them as Muggles—were Obliviated and I knew about our world. Standard procedure: upon first recorded accidental use of magic, mages born to Mundanes are informed of the world that has opened for them."

"That's different—I was always doing strange things, but no explanation came until my Hogwarts' letter," Lily said. "It's also a better system than we had. What do you do for schools?"

"Well, the only well known one is the Salem Witches Institute—as you can tell by the name, it's a girls only school. There's a boys only school, East Coast Wizards' School which is the sister school to Salem," said Adam. "There's also the Golden Gate in San Francisco—that's the one I would have attended—the New Orleans School of Magic and the Vancouver Magical Academy and others. But only the purebloods and the Mundane born who can be day students attend those schools."

"That doesn't sound fair," Lily said, "but you said you _would_ have attended?"

Adam smiled. "The Institute recognises—and the other schools follow along with the Institute—that Mundane born students and the Mundane-raised have formed important ties to their home, in the manner of friends and such. So the Institute came up with the idea to educate magical students inside Mundane schools. The schools mandate seven years of schooling—students who choose this method have eleven, since we also have to attend Mundane school."

"Is it hard?" Lily said.

"Not for Adam," Aisha said.

Adam ducked his head, blushing. "I do all right," he said. "If you're curious, I was able to tell Aisha and Rocky about magic because they're considered part of my family; but they've got a spell on them that means they can't talk about it unless they _know_ the other person is also in the know somehow. There's no real restriction on my usage of magic—I'm able to do magic outside of school as long as no other Muggle sees it."

Lily nodded, storing that piece of information away. "How about a duel?"

~*~

**Negotiating**

He was good. Lily had to admit that. Her own power and knowledge was greater and as such, she'd won every duel, but Adam was good.

"I'd enjoy teaching you," Lily said as she supervised Aisha and Rocky making sandwiches. She made a mental note to purchase a house-elf.

"Why can't you?" Aisha said, setting the plate of sandwiches on the table.

Lily sat back in her seat. _Well, it isn't like I'd be doing anything else here. Between them all, I'd make a little money, which would be useful._ She looked at Adam.

"I'll ask my parents?"

"Go ahead," Lily said, waving her wand. A piece of paper floated down to each of them. "There's my number if any of your parents want to talk to me. And if they ask, my name is... Granger. Lily Granger." _I hope you don't mind, Danger._ "Aisha, you should ring your mother?"

They all nodded—Adam had promised to explain what he knew of Lily Potter—and Aisha went to call her mother.

~*~

Thursday, August 2nd, 1984.

**Angel Grove—Lily's Residence**

To say that Lily Potter was a slavedriver was—in the minds of her three students—putting it mildly. Adam had walked into a magical duel the moment he arrived. Rocky and Aisha turning up had only turned it into a sparring session involving magic. They couldn't quite shake the feeling that Lily was only playing with them, dragging the session out for as long as she could, but as long as she didn't use her full capabilities, they were going to take advantage of that.

"You can do better than that!" Aisha said, backing off to let Rocky move in.

"You think you have me?" Lily said.

Rocky blocked Lily's attack and drove her into the wall with a kick, dropping away as Adam fired off several spells.

"Yes," they chorused.

A wandless shield activated, the spells splashing against it as Lily launched into action. A Stunner took care of Adam and two attacks had Aisha and Rocky on the defensive. Acknowledging that the tide of the match had changed, they conceded.

Lily nullified the Stunner and looked at her students. "That was interesting."

"You cheated!" Aisha said.

"How?" Lily said. "All I did was not fight with my maximum ability until the end of the fight. You recognised that and took advantage of that, which was smart. Your mistake was expecting me to continue in that vein; especially once you had cornered me. Adam, you need to starting fighting and using magic together—not doing them separately. There were at least twenty openings when you were fighting that you could have had me if you'd cast a spell."

"But it's hard to do both," Adam said.

"Don't I know it," Lily said. "The problem is, doing them separately gives your opponent time to react defensively against your new chosen tactics, thus nullifying any positive effect you'd get from it."

"Again?" Rocky said.

"I figured you'd want lunch first, but if you want another fight..."

"Food's good," Rocky said.

Pixie popped into the room. "Is Mistress wanting lunch?"

"Yes, Pixie. Sandwiches will be fine," Lily said, before turning back to her students. "I think I have a good idea of your capabilities now and where you could improve."

"Should have known this was all a test," Adam said.

"How do you expect me to teach without knowing what my students already know?" Lily said.

Pixie popped back with sandwiches.

"Thank you, Pixie," Lily said, echoed by her students.

~*~

The battle between good and evil has raged for millions of years, even before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The balance between good and evil has always been precarious and too often tilted in evil's favour. Planets, systems, galaxies—all of them have fallen, been abandoned or struck back as evil waged its path of war.

Earth is no exception.

~*~

Sunday, August 5th, 1984.

**Oxford—The Pack Den**

"So tell me about your aunt again?" Sirius said as the Pack-adults packed various suitcases and bags. They should have packed days ago, but magic made it so easy to pack on the day they were leaving, that they'd kind of put it off and off...

"Name is Amy Freeman, Muggle, works for a bank in Pittsburgh..." Aletha shrugged. "I forget how old she is. Certainly in her fifties, if not past it."

"No ideas on why she would contact you and ask you to visit?" Danger said. "And buy all the tickets?"

"None. She made the offer eight weeks ago; I haven't thought much on it since," Aletha said. "As for the tickets, she liked me; I was her favourite niece."

"Would I be correct in assuming you were her only niece?" Narcissa said, flicking her wand at a pile of clothes, which folded up and floated into the suitcase.

Aletha grinned and said no more.

"The cubs are likely to be difficult," Remus said. "All in favour of dosing them with a sleeping potion so they wake up... half an hour from landing?"

The motion passed unanimously, though Aletha vowed to ask for the next time, that Amy purchase tickets that weren't for daytime flights.

"Come on, Danger," Remus said. "Let's go wake the cubs up."

~*~

**I Can't Believe It's Not Magic!**

The cubs had protested vehemently at the idea of taking sleeping potions and against their better judgment, Sirius had drawn the losing straw to stay with them.

"Where we going?" Draco said.

"America," Sirius said, a touch of exasperation lacing his tone.

"It whole other land," Hermione said.

"Padfoot, how does plane stay up?" Harry said.

"Ask Moony," Sirius said.

"Moony, how does plane stay up?"

Remus began to explain, but was cut off almost at once.

"It not magic?"

"No, Harry," Remus said, grateful for the small mercy that Harry hadn't yelled the question out. Harry lost interest at once and Remus returned to his discussion with Danger.

"Actually, Remus, if you wouldn't mind, how _does_ the plane stay up?" Narcissa said.

~*~

**Pittsburgh—Amy Freeman's Residence**

Once the Pack had factored in the flight's length, the time change and the formalities of entering the United States and renting hotels, it was a bit after three o'clock in the afternoon.

"You'll be much better off if you can last another five hours, minimum," Amy said as they sat around her apartment, the cubs in various laps.

"We've been curious," Aletha said.

"About why I invited you and paid for the tickets?" Amy said. "I haven't seen you since you were eleven, Aletha. I felt a visit was overdue. And I know you: if I paid for the tickets, you would come."

"Why's that, Amy?" Danger said.

Aletha groaned. "Remember my seventh birthday? Aunt Amy sent me a basket of sweets. I hated every one of them. But I ate them all—not all at once, Draco, don't you get any ideas—because it was a present and to dispose of them in the garbage would have been bad."

Danger shuddered. "I remember those. I refused to eat them after the fifth one."

"What was this sweet?" Sirius said.

"I am thankful that I no longer remember the name of the sweet," Aletha said. "I swore at the time that if I ever encountered them again, I would destroy them."

"For your information, the sweet in question was Lemonheads," Amy said with a smirk.

Aletha shuddered, like Danger before her—the memory was that awful.

The rest of the night passed in similar fashion, the Pack editing their anecdotes as necessary to avoid letting on about the existence of magic. The four unrelated Pack adults found they liked Amy very much.

~*~

Monday, August 6th, 1984.

**Pittsburgh**

"We'll have to entertain ourselves for the first part of the week," Aletha said the next morning. "Aunt Amy's got work this week, but after that she'll be in the clear. She did give me a few ideas on what to do with the cubs, though."

"What did she suggest?" Narcissa said.

"Zoo, amusement park. There are some libraries in the area, which Hermione will like. And the hotel has a pool. Hopefully they won't be bored."

"Amusement park?" Sirius said.

Remus, Aletha and Danger exchanged looks and then got very predatory looks on their faces.

"You'll see, Sirius."

~*~

**Angel Grove**

Adam had to wonder exactly what had given Lily the idea to evaluate his magical schooling. She had promised that she might be able to help him out with a few things afterwards. The promise was interesting enough that he had agreed to the evaluation.

"Eleven years of schooling,both Mundane and magical knowledge," Lily said. "That means you would start learning when you're six, in first grade."

"Yes," Adam said.

"How do you start out? Theory, practical, both?"

"Theory and practical, though at first we're taken through simple exercises to get us accustomed to using magic."

"We didn't have to do that at Hogwarts."

"It's fairly common knowledge that your magical core is reasonably developed and able to withstand the pressures of learning magic at age eleven, hence you begin school at that age. However, the purebloods also know that the earlier one starts actively using magic, the easier it is later to use. But as the magical core isn't yet developed, you have to learn how to access it before you can actively use it."

Lily frowned. "James and Sirius did talk a lot about how they'd always had wands. And Remus and Aletha never had wands until their first years at Hogwarts—Aletha was in the year below us." She shrugged. "So you access the core and then when you've accomplished that, you move onto spells and such?"

"That's it. It's harder this way than it is for those who don't start before school, but the purebloods swear by it," Adam said.

"America is so much more advanced... not like it matters. Let's go back to figuring out what you do know."

It was lunchtime before Lily was satisfied. Her evaluation placed Adam in fifth year, closer to the middle than the end by her estimate. Pixie was making lunch for them as they rested. Lily contemplated what she could do with Adam's schooling, debating on the merits of advancing him further before school began, but ruled that out. Once school began, she could get a feel for what he was expected to learn and teach it to him. Only then could she teach him more.

The doorbell rang and with a sigh, Lily went to answer it. She didn't think it would be Aisha or Rocky, or one of the parents, but if it wasn't them, she had no clue who it could be.

_I remember all my life,  
Raining down as cold as ice  
Shadows of a man  
A face through a window, cryin' in the night  
The night goes on into_ _Morning just another day..._

The song cut off abruptly as Lily opened the door.

~*~

**Strange Visitors**

Adam wandered around the block, letting his mind explore the problem.

He'd been sent out of the house when Lily's visitor arrived, but had not failed to notice the worry and potential fear in her eyes. Lily was quite capable of defending herself against a Mundane, so her visitor was a witch. More than that, she was a witch that was aware of whom Lily was.

That made her a danger. Adam wondered if Lily would disappear.

He supposed he wouldn't blame her.

~*~

**A False Promise**

"You need to go home," Lily said when Adam had circled the block twice.

"Are you going to be okay?" Adam said. It was none of his business, but he was concerned for the young witch.

"Who can say?" Lily said, squeezing his shoulder. "Like I said, you need to go home. I need to do some things."

"Are you staying?"

"Don't see any reason not to," Lily said.

That was enough for Adam, who headed off.

~*~

**Pittsburgh—Kennywood**

The amusement park—Kennywood, it was called—had provided no end of giggles for the Pack, for Sirius enjoyed the rides immensely—to the point of taking Harry, Hermione and Draco on two roller coasters each before Hermione threw up on him and dampened his enthusiasm.

"She threw up on me," Sirius repeated as Aletha wrung his shirt out in the sink. "And why can't you use magic for that?"

"It would look too suspicious. Be grateful that we had extra shirts."

"But I like—"

"That shirt is just a shirt. You do not like that shirt unless I'm wearing it. Now shut up."

The rest of the day was spent on more quieter rides, ones the cubs could in theory, go on by themselves.

~*~

**Angel Grove**

It had been a lie, or at least, not the entire truth.

Right now, it was taking all Lily possessed to not run.

_They are in America._

Why did those words strike fear into her? Why did she want to avoid the friends with whom she'd spent many years in Hogwarts with?

"I don't know!" she said, her breathing rapid. With a sigh—and grateful that she had wit enough to begin—Lily executed several steps of a kata, her erratic movements settling into the fluid grace as the minutes passed and her head cleared of emotion.

Two separate issues.

The Pack was here and she did not want to be found by anyone, especially the Pack.

And that not wanting to be found was based on a much stronger level than merely needing to re-gather and understand the situation.

"What are the facts?" Lily said. Perhaps listing them might show her the path she needed to take. "I have a commitment here that I will not abandon. I did not bind her to keep her silence; therefore it is possible she will tell the Pack. It is fair to say that they have changed from the people I knew—I would bet that Sirius is less impulsive than he was."

Her movements changed with sudden swiftness as she segued into a more complex kata.

"Even so, it is probable that Sirius will want to come after me and I do not think that Aletha or Remus will allow their usual levelheadedness to prevail in this. Narcissa and this Danger are unknown quantities, but I cannot see them stopping the others—they have had years to see the effect my disappearance had on those three."

Lily spun, light on her feet and bowed.

"School resumes soon. If I could contrive some reason to be away from here during the weekdays, that might offer some form of security."

_Your options are limited,_ her mind broke in. _You would have to run your own business; you have little hope of being employed otherwise. The goblins can help you with that._

"But what can I do? The only marketable skill I have is martial arts."

Something flittered at the edge of her mind, but Lily couldn't quite place the memory. She sighed; it seemed her Occlumency had frayed somewhat if her memories weren't coming at her beck and call. That was another thing to sort out and until she had that done, she would have to hope she caught the thought.

~*~

Friday, August 10th, 1984.

**Pittsburgh**

There was a crack of Apparation and Amy Freeman found herself on the receiving end of five wands and five stunned looks.

"You're a witch?" Aletha said.

"Yes," Amy said, brushing off questions. "There was no need to keep it secret any longer—I'm aware you're a witch, but even if you weren't, you're involved with this lot, so you'd know about magic."

"Why reveal your abilities now, though?" Remus said.

Amy evaded the question. "When we met, you implied that you'd formed a Pack-style heirarchy. I need to speak with your alpha male."

Remus stepped forward. "Shall we return to your apartment?"

Amy nodded and with two cracks, they Disapparated.

~*~

**Revealing Secrets**

**Any chance you'll tell me what's going on?**

**No. This is an alpha male secret. She doesn't want anyone else to know.**

**Understood.**

Remus barricaded Danger out of his mind and looked at Amy Freeman, who had put up privacy spells.

"You said you worked for a bank," Remus said. "That would be Gringotts—or rather the American equivalent. As Wizard/Muggle relations are a little different in America, business need to look like Muggle businesses on the surface, and therefore need to be capable of handling Muggles. Therefore, human tellers are required. And it's not impossible that humans might work their way up in the heirarchy."

"Correct," Amy said. "I am the highest-ranked human currently working at Noxet Bank."

Remus watched the woman and waited for her to gather her thoughts.

"I could get fired for telling you this," Amy said.

"Then why are you telling me?" Remus said. The question hung in the air for several seconds before Amy ignored it.

"The Potter vaults remain untouched," Amy said. "The personal vault of Lily Potter has had its transactions made private. As of July 24th, any transactions made on that vault are not a matter of public record."

"Who has the authority to do that?" Remus said.

"Considering that Gringotts did not release the contents of the vault as there was no verifiable proof of Lily Potter's death, who do you think has the authority to do that?"

"Lily."

~*~

**Angel Grove**

Adam looked up as Rocky fought Lily. Every few minutes, Lily would pause the fight, advise Rocky on various aspects the fight would resume. Adam looked back down at the textbook and continued to read, writing things down.

"Having fun?" Aisha said, looking up from her own book.

"Define fun," Adam said. But his tone was light-hearted.

Aisha shrugged and went back to her book. "School's going to start soon," she said. "Little over three weeks. Too bad we can't have more time here; I like the training."

Lily scowled and pressed her advantage against Rocky for a few seconds before falling back, but Rocky didn't follow up.

"You've learned," Lily said. "Some advantages are not to be taken."

Rocky nodded, then attacked, but Lily deflected his blows, tripping him with ease. "And surprise attacks only work if the target is truly surprised."

Lily smiled and helped Rocky to his feet. "Aisha?"

Aisha traded places with Rocky, bowing. The two opponents watched each other, until Aisha attacked with a series of punches and kicks. She landed three blows, but then found herself pinned to the ground.

"If you could pin me to the ground, why did you let me even touch you?" Aisha said, breathing hard.

"Because letting you hit me gave me the opening; had I blocked you, I still could have won the fight, but it would have taken me longer."

"How'd you know that?" Adam said.

"Aisha always opens with the same tactic," Lily said. "I saw the weakness and exploited it. Had she delivered that tactic later, I would not have been able to pin her. Or rather, I would be too hesitant to pin her."

"So why could you pin me now?" Aisha said as Lily let her up.

"In the opening of the fight, Aisha's stationary; at any other point, Aisha is usually moving. And if you're moving about, I'd rather not try and pin you. I don't fancy injuring you by misjudging your momentum against the momentum of my attack. As long as you remained still, I was sure I wouldn't injure you."

Aisha nodded.

"How long have you been training?" Adam said.

"Since I was four. It's been a long time since Master Mao..." Lily's eyes grew distant, as the memory of when Master Mao came to England washed over her.

_Lily sat behind the counter, watching her father work on the pizzas he was making. She looked at the oven where the pizzas cooked—after touching it once, months ago and coming away with burned fingers, she knew now never to touch it._ _Her father took some pizzas out of the oven and boxed them, giving them to the customers before putting a new set of pizzas in and then sat next to her._ _It was then Master Mao had come into the restaurant, looking directly at Lily._

"I suppose it's not only martial arts, after all," she said to herself. "What do you think of pizza?"

The three exchanged glances. "Pizza's good."

"Come with me," Lily said.

Four hours later, having made the requisite shopping run, Lily pulled two pizzas from her oven, looking at them with a critical eye.

"Well... seeing as I haven't made pizzas since the summer of 1977, I'm going to say that I succeeded thus far." With a wave of her wand, she cut the pizzas into slices. "Dig in."

Only Lily was surprised when Rocky ate an entire pizza's worth.

~*~

**Pittsburgh**

**Are you okay?**

**No.**

**Can I help?**

**I don't think so.**

**I don't like alpha male secrets.**

**I'm not sure I like them either.**

A crack of Apparation sounded and Remus appeared, followed by Amy.

"Any plans?" Remus said.

"I was wondering if I might have the children for the day," Amy said. "You could use some time to yourselves."

"I'm bored," Harry said.

"Me too," Draco said, nodding.

"Come on, children," Amy said, ushering them out. "I have an idea that you three will like."

"Not children," Hermione said, a pout crossing her face.

"We're four," Draco said.

"Older than Padfoot," Harry said.

"WHAT?!"

~*~

Saturday, August 11th, 1984.

**Oxford—The Pack Den.**

Remus let go of the international Portkey and took a deep breath, looking around. "Up the stairs, find the letters." He wasn't sure why he was checking if they were there. They weren't going to be.

It came as no surprise when the letters were gone.

"And what do you plan to do with that confirmed knowledge?" he said to himself. "She's alive. Amy told you. The letters were intended for her, so they were delivered."

He rested against the wall, suddenly feeling very old. His mind sifted through the information, only coming up with more questions. Why had those letters been deliverable now and never before? Where was Lily, if she was in America?

"Are you a wizard or not?" Remus said, pulling out his wand. "Point Me Lily Potter."

His wand laid still for a moment before spinning around. Remus had to grab his wand to make it stop and with a resigned sigh, he went to collect the international Portkey. One very confusing trip later, he found himself in Pittsburgh International Airport. He looked around for a secluded place and found a few signs pointing to a safe spell area, which turned out to be behind a group of murals lining a tunnel wall. Hoping for better results, Remus pulled out his wand again.

"Point Me Lily Potter."

The same results happened as before. Using Lily Evans didn't work, nor did Lily Evans-Potter.

She wasn't dead. Remus knew that now. So why wasn't the spell working?

"Point Me Sirius' annoying little sister," Remus said. _Maybe this will work._

The wand spun once, twice and then stopped. Unsure of how he would get out of the airport and still hold that direction, Remus focused his attention on Apparating to the hotel room. It would be easier to follow the line from there.

Arriving back in the room, he repeated the spell.

"That makes no sense," he said, watching his wand move in an arc, as if the person was walking back and forth. "It can't be that precise, unless..."

The door from the other room opened. Remus' wand immediately focused on the door.

"Morning," Danger said, leaning against the doorway.

~*~

**Parting Ways**

"So what do you plan on doing once we leave tomorrow?" Aletha said to Amy over their final dinner.

"I've arranged to take a working vacation," Amy said. "Going around to various branches of Noxet Bank, though I'll have time enough to look around."

"Sounds like hard work," Narcissa said.

"Can be. You don't rise to my position without a lot of it, though," Amy said. "And in any case, it doesn't start until October. But enough of work. What do you plan on doing for the rest of your vacation?"

The conversation then turned to the planned tour of the magical US. Everyone expressed varying levels of interest at this, Danger, Remus and Aletha especially.

"Are you sure the cubs can handle this?" Amy said.

"Yes," Remus said. "We checked everything out—there'll be plenty of stuff for them to do, so they should be entertained. And it's only ten days."

Amy nodded. "My apologies, though."

"Why?" Aletha said.

"I should have thought more when inviting you. Children of their age can be difficult to handle."

"We've got a good bunch, mostly," Danger said, looking over at the cubs as they carried on their own, hushed conversation. "Growing up with two pranksters, however... we've learned to deal. They mind the rules. As long as nothing gets out of hand, we ignore it."

Amy nodded.

After dinner, Amy hugged them all, lingering most on Meghan, Aletha and Sirius.

"Take care of her," Amy said to Sirius.

"I will," Sirius said.

"And you," Amy said, hugging Aletha. "I love you."

"I love you too," Aletha said. They parted ways with Amy then, leaving Aletha looking thoughtful.

Amy's parting words to Remus caused deep thought for him as well, but he held his tongue. Lily and those related problems would have to wait.

~*~

Tuesday, August 14th, 1984.

**Noxet Bank—Gorignak's Office**

Gorignak welcomed Lily into the office.

"What can we do for you today?" he said, cutting to business.

"I need something to do, something to bring in money so I'm not living off my vault," Lily said. "Obtaining employment in the magical world means revealing myself. In the Mundane world, it means providing information I do not have. My only option therefore is to open my own business."

Gorignak nodded. "I presume you will not be opening this business in your name, to further protect your interests."

"Yes, that's correct."

"I would recommend a loan. We would then be able to offer you other help."

"What other help?"

"You would need premises and for the premises to be furnished. We can arrange that and all you would have to do is turn up as the operator. Additionally, once the loan is paid off, we can then have your business transferred into your name."

"But I don't want that," Lily said. "Do I?"

Gorignak smiled, his teeth sharp. "Your venture—call it Anne's Amazing Works—would be owned by a corporation, whilst you operated it as Anne Smythe. The venture would then transfer from the corporation to Anne Smythe when the loan was repaid. Should you ever need to leave behind the name of Anne Smythe, the venture would easily transfer to Lily Evans."

"And all I have to do is provide three names?"

"As well as figuring out the loan," Gorignak said. "I should think that it would not take us very long to get you all set up once you have done your work here."

Lily nodded. "Just tell me what I need to do."

~*~

**A Not So Sisterly Missive**

Returning to her home, Lily sat in contemplation, running through a list of the things she would need to arrange for. It was strange how the memories of ordering all the pizza supplies came back so easily. Idly, she wondered what had happened to her father's pizzeria. Perhaps she would need to contact Petunia.

_It is most likely lost to you,_ she thought. _Petunia never wanted anything to do with the pizzeria once you were confirmed as a witch, given it was a place you took much enjoyment from. Petunia would have sold the pizzeria—or would she?_

Lily looked thoughtful. Petunia had hated her enough to withhold her inheritance, the legality of which could be debated. Lily had never bothered to do anything about it—she was too busy dealing with the war. The question she pondered now was if Petunia would have dared to risk even greater legal trouble by disposing of Lily's inheritance.

"She wouldn't have," Lily said, stretching. "She was too obsessed with being normal. The shame of a trial would be too much for her."

She drew parchment and ink towards her, beginning to draft a letter.

~*~

Friday, August 17th, 1984.

**Little Whinging, Surrey**

Petunia Dursley was perfectly normal, thank you. And she was happy with being normal. Too much trouble came from being freaky and unnatural—hadn't she warned her sister over seven years ago now at their parents' funeral? Well, she'd been proved right when a form letter informed her of her sister's disappearance, over four and a half years ago now—which she'd thrown in the bin after a cursory glance.

All of that was on her mind right now as she cleaned house. She'd put Dudley to bed for his usual nap, much against his protests. Her hand strayed once more to the letter the owl had delivered.

_Petunia,_ _Our parents died on the twenty-third of July, 1977. I am fully aware of what my inheritance constituted, but in light of your pain and the war that you knew was going on, I chose to respect your demands and stayed away from you, bar the funeral._ _I hoped—if foolishly—that you would honour our parents' wishes and give me my inheritance, yet you made no move to contact me to do so. I will be coming to see you this Friday; about ten o'clock. I want what is mine, Petunia. No more, no less._ _Lily._

The doorbell rang. Petunia wasn't surprised to note it was exactly ten o'clock.

Opening the door, she blinked. Her sister seemed no older than nineteen.

"Lily."

"Petunia."

"Come in," Petunia said at last, letting Lily in. She didn't doubt for a second that Lily had her wand, but it appeared that in deference to Petunia's dislike of magic, Lily had concealed it.

"What do you want?" Petunia said.

"Our parents' will said they had left me the pizzeria. That was it. I want my pizzeria."

Before Petunia could wonder how she knew what the will had said, Lily added, "I know the place has been run by other people since before they died. I want the money owed me for the pizzeria's rent. I'm going to assume the rent was never changed. So... that's seventy-three thousand pounds you owe me, erring on the side of caution. Check it yourself if you don't believe me."

Lily handed Petunia a scroll of parchment, but after a look at it, Petunia was forced to agree that Lily had made fair calculations.

"You missed out on four hundred pounds," she said with reluctance. "What do you want me to do?"

"Do you remember Remus Lupin?"

"I recall the name."

"Get the seventy-three thousand and have the pizzeria be prepared to be transferred into his name; he is one of the guardians of my son. In addition, he has a presence in the normal world, so you will not have to come in contact with more of my kind than necessary. I want it all transferred into his name by this time next week. August 24th, this year to be clear. As for the excess rent—you can keep it."

"Is that all?"

Lily nodded. "I doubt we'll see each other again, unless you don't do as I've asked. But I think you will. You wouldn't risk having a freak back in your home again."

With a crack of Apparation, Lily was gone, leaving Petunia to consider the bitterness in Lily's voice.

Petunia didn't like to feel uncertain, though after an hour of thought she had to acknowledge that it was the emotion she was feeling. With a resigned sigh, she lifted the phone to contact her solicitor.

She hated it when Lily was right.

~*~

Thursday, August 23rd, 1984.

**Angel Grove—The Juice Bar**

Ernest Sucus was the overweight and jolly owner of the Angel Grove Youth Center Gym and Juice Bar and ran the entire operation by himself. Everyone knew and liked him: Ernie was always available to listen to the teens that hung out and would help them out when and if he could.

Ernie placed the last smoothie on the tray before taking the tray over to the table, which seated his favourite group—Zack Taylor, Kimberly Hart, Billy Cranston, Trini Kwan and Jason Lee Scott.

"Hey guys," he said.

"Hey, Ernie," they said.

"Who ordered the spinach smoothie?" Ernie said. He didn't notice Billy raising his hand as the building began to shake.

"Oh no! It's an earthquake!" Ernie said, turning around. "Everybody stay calm!" He was a little offbalance and ended up dumping the smoothies all over Farkus Bulkmeier. "Sorry, Bulk!"

Evacuation of the Youth Center began—if most of the patrons running out screaming their heads off in fear could be called evacuation. Ernie did his best to get everyone out of the Youth Center in an orderly fashion as bits of the roof and supports began to fall down. In doing so, he left the five teens to their own devices, but he didn't have time to worry about that and besides, he knew they were capable of taking care of themselves.

Doubling back from the entrance to ensure everyone was out of the building, Ernie halted at the entrance to the main room. The five teens were the only ones left in the building. He was about to call out to them when they dissolved into coloured light and disappeared.

Ernest Sucus, MSG of the United States Army was a Vietnam vet. He knew how to connect dots. But he also knew when to keep his mouth shut. No one could accuse Ernie of being a dumb man.

Therefore, when the Power Rangers arrived on the scene later that day and then the same five teens began wearing wristwatches with solid colour bands that would invariably utter a six beep tone before the Rangers would appear to fight against Rita's current plot, Ernie knew what no other resident of Angel Grove did.

~*~

**Angel Grove—Mojave Desert**

The sun was high in the air, yet it could not be later than one in the afternoon. The sun beat down mercilessly, not that it had any effect on Lily, who had cast protective and cooling charms. Out in the desert, Lily could almost ignore the fact there was a giant monkey with wings fighting against what appeared to be a giant mechanoid robot—were it not for the fact that sound carried.

Her charges had been whisked away to deal with resuming school, giving her a day to herself.

_I've been having too many days to myself,_ she thought as she wandered about. _I need to be more disciplined. So I will be._

With that decision made, Lily half turned to see a rock formation plunged into sudden darkness and felt herself shivering as though she'd stepped into minus degree weather naked. She looked up at the sky, seeing the stars and the crescent sliver of the waning moon. As an afterthought, Lily cancelled the cooling spell, replacing with a warming spell.

Choosing not to think of it, Lily turned for home. There were things to be done.

~*~

Friday, August 24th, 1984.

**Oxford—The Pack Den**

An owl fluttered in through the window, dropping a letter in Remus' lap as he ate breakfast.

Opening it, he read the contents.

_Mr Lupin,_ _Please be advised that your Gringotts account was credited with seventy-three thousand pounds today. In addition to this, you now own the premises located at..._

Remus folded up the letter once he'd read it all, thinking. He recognised the address, realised what it meant without even reading the rest.

Somehow, Petunia Evans—was she married now? It was possible—had been persuaded to relinquish her control of Lily's inheritance and the money Lily would have made from it had she been given it at the correct time. Of course it would come to them as the guardians of Harry, but why him? From a technical point of view, Sirius had more right to be in control of the inheritance than he did.

_I hope you know what you're doing, Lily,_ he thought, making a note to meet the current renters of the pizzeria.

A thought occurred to him and he looked up at Narcissa and Aletha. "Sirius is currently an unregistered Animagus. What if we began to learn to become Animagi as well, to provide Sirius with a cover story when we register?"

The idea was approved and passed, with a promise that learning would commence on the first of September.

~*~

**Diagon Alley—Ollivander's**

Andromeda, Ted and Nymphadora Tonks were making their way around Diagon Alley, preparing Nymphadora for her first year at Hogwarts. Nymphadora looked up at the sign for Ollivanders and with a feeling of nervous excitement, entered the shop.

And promptly walked into a shelf, causing wands to go about everywhere.

Nymphadora's hair went bright red with embarrassment as Ollivander appeared and waved his wand, fixing the mess. He fixed his eyes on Nymphadora.

"Your first wand?" he said.

Summoning her courage, Nymphadora shook her head, but this did not seem to phase Ollivander. "I wanted to get a staff," she said, proud of herself for not betraying her nervousness. "It's said that Rowena Ravenclaw had a staff herself."

"That is true," Ollivander said. "The Staff of Rowena Ravenclaw. Polished wood of hazel and willow, inset with runes of bronze and with a bright sapphire set at its top. The core was phoenix tears and unicorn blood. Some sources claim there was a third core—a plant of some type, not of our world. It must have taken skilled craftmanship to bind the woods together. Even I have never managed that. You may also know that she had a talent for healing. It is said this staff increased this talent."

"So what happened to the staff?" Nymphadora said.

"No one knows," Ollivander said. "It disappeared. Not long after, she healed an entire class of students who had been badly burned by a rogue dragon. Without the staff, she needed two months to recover from it. Her hair remained white for the rest of her life."

Ollivander looked at Nymphadora. "In any case, Nymphadora, Rowena had a wand as well. She did not gain her staff until she was twenty, when her magical core was ready. A staff would be too draining for you at this point in time."

Nymphadora deflated, but submitted to the task of finding a wand—nine and three-quarter inches, hazel with a core of unicorn hair.

As she exited the shop after her parents, she caught Ollivander's parting message.

"Come back in nine years and we shall see what can be done for one such as you."

~*~

Saturday, September 1st, 1984.

**The Hogwarts Express**

Charlie Weasley stowed his trunk in a compartment, feeling a little nervous.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Charlie said.

Bill squeezed his shoulder. "You'll be okay once the train starts moving."

"If the train starts moving, I _will_ be sick," Charlie said, sitting down in the compartment.

Bill grinned. "It'll be fine. Remember, you're finally going to Hogwarts."

Charlie gave him a look, but took his seat. "See you in Gryffindor, Bill."

"See you there," Bill said, wandering back through the train to find his friends. As he entered his compartment, a girl brushed past him, a quill in her hand as she scribbled in her book. Bill grinned and greeted his friends, a last lingering thought in his head.

_Muggleborns—they're always so excited about this world._

~*~

**Hogwarts—The Great Hall: The Sorting**

"Tonks, Nymphadora!"

Making a mental note to deck anyone who used her name, Nymphadora walked to the stool, letting the hat rest upon her hair—blonde with black streaks through today—and waited.

_A Metamorphmagus... there hasn't been one since Elvendork Black in the time of the Founders,_ said the Hat. _Or to be more precise; there hasn't been one at Hogwarts—if there was, they hid it better than you do. So where would you go? Hmm. You would do well in Slytherin, but you think you'd disappoint your mother. Even so... perhaps you can show that not all Slytherin Blacks are Dark. Hufflepuff might have done you well in another time and place, but not under these circumstances, unless..._

_What about the others?_

_Ravenclaw would do well by you, especially if you plan to gain that staff. And Gryffindor, I might have chosen Gryffindor for you... but Miss Tonks, what do you want? Which house do you desire?_

Nymphadora thought for a moment before making her choice.

Anyone looking at her would have recognised her Black heritage.

~*~

**Ready And Waiting**

Beneath Hogwarts, an ancient sentience woke.

Her mistress... master, whatever—was here; she was capable of knowing that much.

Soon, then. The Mistress would come.

~*~

Monday, September 3rd, 1984.

**Oxford—The Pack Den**

Silent footsteps approached the bed. Two sleeping forms inhabited the bed, but only one was their intended target.

Sirius awoke with a grunt as the three cubs landed on him.

"Up!" they said.

"What time is it?" Sirius said, struggling to sit up.

"Time to get up," Aletha said. "You shouldn't have told them you were going to take them to the Ministry for Take Your Children To Work Day."

"Go downstairs," Sirius said to the cubs. "Get Danger to feed you."

If not for Aletha's prodding, Sirius would have gone back to bed, but twenty minutes later found him at the table as Danger served him pancakes and eggs.

"I made a special breakfast for you," Danger said.

Sirius looked down. Honey was drizzled over his pancakes, spelling out a simple message.

_Good luck. You're going to need it._

"I must applaud you on your ability to use honey that well to create a legible message," Sirius said before spearing the pancakes and beginning to eat his breakfast.

Danger grinned and turned back to the stove.

"You three know the rules?" Sirius said.

Three nods.

"And if anyone bothers you?"

"Get you," Hermione said.

"Sirius, is that really going to work?" Remus said.

Sirius didn't even look up from his breakfast. "What do you mean?"

"I don't doubt they understand that if they have trouble, they are to get you—but we raised them to be Gryffindors."

Sirius' fork clattered on the plate. "Is it too late to back out?"

~*~

**The Ministry of Magic**

"Morning, Arthur," Sirius said to Arthur Weasley. He eyed the children milling about Arthur.

"Sirius," Arthur said. "This is my lot... Ginny, Ronald, Fred, George and Percy." Each of the children looked up at Sirius with curiosity, though Percy seemed to want to glare more at Fred and George.

"Hermione, Harry, Draco," Sirius said.

The children eyed each other.

"Tag?" Hermione said.

The children scattered.

"Great, now I'm never going to find them," Sirius said. "This would never have happened under Bagnold."

"I doubt it will happen again," Arthur said. "The Ministry is no place for children."

"Did anyone try to tell Fudge that?"

"I don't believe Fudge listened."

Sirius snorted and parted ways with Arthur, backtracking to try and find the cubs. As he expected, he was unsuccessful and rerouted to his office. Determining that he had nothing that couldn't wait, Sirius went back after the cubs, running into Frank and Alice Longbottom, who were parting from Anita Lovegood and a small girl—her daughter.

"Sirius," Anita said. "Good to see you."

"Anita," Sirius said, watching Anita and her daughter leave before turning to the Longbottoms. "Frank, Alice. You haven't seen my kids, have you?"

"The Weasleys stole Neville," Alice said, exasperation lacing her tone. "I did see black, blond and brown amongst the red. I assume they were yours?"

"Yes, that would be them. So... five Galleons I can get more kids than either of you?"

"You're on," Frank said.

~*~

**Unbalanced Paint Wars**

The Ministry wasn't the best place for hiding. The children made the best of it, however, finding places in obvious and unobvious places.

Hermione wandered over the Ministry floor, trying to find the others. But with people wandering around and other kids also all over the place, it was hard.

Something impacted on her cheek. Lifting up her hand, she touched her cheek and then stared at the black paint on her fingers.

"PAINT!" she said, her voice rising into a shriek.

Sirius snagged her and with a pout, Hermione obeyed the rules by taking hold of the rope tied to Sirius' waist. It slithered from his waist and circled around hers, turning black.

"Already got one," Frank said. "You're good."

Hermione pouted as she followed Sirius. She liked this game—until she got caught. Every so often, the Pack adults would team up against the cubs. The cubs would always manage to get one adult each, and another adult would be taken out by all three of them together, but they'd never actually won the game by getting all five—the fifth adult _always_ got the cubs.

It never occurred to the cubs the game was rigged.

Elsewhere, Draco and Harry had heard Hermione's shriek.

Harry looked at Ron and Ginny. "War."

"War?" Ron said.

"Padfoot got Neenie."

Draco edged out of his hiding spot, finding Percy.

"This isn't how we're supposed to be acting," Percy said.

"Padfoot got Neenie. Keep away," Draco said.

Percy sputtered, not understanding until a gob of paint smacked his arm. He looked at it. Green.

"One to me," Alice said. "Take the rope."

Percy obeyed with some hesitation, watching it circle him and turn green.

Percy wasn't sure what to make of this. It seemed to be some kind of game, but it wasn't anything like the games his brothers got up to. The noise level had died down a fair bit and that didn't really make sense to Percy. When you were running around and having a mock fight, there was a lot of noise. Quiet games were things like chess, or checkers.

He followed Alice.

Harry met up with Draco and they huddled away with Fred, George, Ron, Neville and Ginny, trying to figure out what they had to do.

"We can fight them," Harry said. "We get them, we win."

"We can't fight them," Fred said. "They've got wands. We don't."

Harry and Draco looked at each other. The Pack-adults would give them play wands—able to shoot colours out when the game was played at home. They did not have those wands.

"New plan," Draco said.

"What?" Neville said.

"Run," Harry said.

The others watched Draco and Harry sneak out and then copied them, all of them being as silent as they could.

Fred and George were the first to be captured as Frank happened on them as they left. He hit them with a spell each, but when they didn't stop, Frank chased them, firing off more spells. Only when the two were completely covered in yellow paint did they admit defeat and take a hold of Frank's rope.

"Will you teach us how to do that?"

"You two don't need any more help, from what I hear," Frank said. "You get into enough trouble without assistance."

Fred and George beamed.

There was a flash of light and Frank looked down at his rope, which had turned bronze.

"Looks like I lost."

They wandered back to the meeting place, where Alice showed off her silver rope for capturing Percy, Ron and Ginny. Sirius had gotten Hermione, Neville, Draco and Harry.

"Not fair," Harry said, echoed by the others.

"Sorry, cub," Sirius said, ruffling Harry's hair.

~*~

**Coming To Unpleasant Realisations**

Sirius paused at the door, watching his cubs. As expected, the three had joined up with Neville, Ron and Ginny and were playing some sort of game. He wasn't sure where the older three Weasleys were.

"We've..." Sirius sighed. It was hard to admit it, but the past years of hiding away hadn't been easy on their cubs. They'd done as best they could and Sirius didn't think the cubs suffered unduly, but they needed more than just each other.

"Unpleasant realisation?" Alice said, stopping at his side.

"You could say that," Sirius said. "We've screwed up, haven't we?"

Alice looked at him. "In what way?"

"We ran away, we hid." Sirius looked up at the ceiling, his wand twirling through his fingers. "It was like we couldn't interact in society at all, due to us hiding some famous falsely convicted criminal."

"Instead you're hiding the Boy-Who-Lived."

"I thought you didn't buy into that crap."

"I don't." Alice smiled and placed her hand on Sirius' shoulder. "Frank and I... we've been your friends for years, Sirius. We understood then and we understand now, why your Pack cut off ties and hid away. You needed time to grieve and you needed to protect Harry." A laugh tugged at her lips. "Still, Frank swore he'd come and beat some sense into you come November if you hadn't come to this realisation."

"Forgive us?"

"Invite us to dinner and you'll be on your way to getting it," Alice said, still smiling.

~*~

**Half-hearted Justifications**

The reception when Sirius returned home with the cubs was strained once Sirius mentioned his revelation. None of them really wanted to admit that he was right.

"Four is really the best age to begin socialising," Danger said, the words sounding hollow even to her.

"Pureblood society wouldn't start showing the children around until they were five. Four is when they begin to learn all the lessons they need," Narcissa said.

"Oh, let's give it up," Aletha said. "We screwed up."

"That felt liberating," Remus said. "Fine, we'll start reconnecting with our friends—but only in here at first. Some of them make take exception to Narcissa and best they do that on our terms."

**Are they going to hate her for her past?** Danger said.

**I don't think so, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared,** Remus said. **The fact that she is Sirius' ward, along with all of the restrictions on her should work in her favour, not to mention that she betrayed the Dark Lord.**

**I hope you're right.**

**We'll find out.**

~*~

Monday, September 10th, 1984.

**Ocean Bluff, California**

It was one AM and Lily was still up, looking through her spell books. She'd had the idea to apply a variation of the Notice-Me-Not spell, to make her seem unimportant, but she needed to know if it would conflict with the glamours she wanted to use.

With a sigh, she slammed the books closed. "Forget glamours. Muggle hair dye and an eye-colour changing potion. Can't be cancelled." She looked down at her body, biting her lip. She'd need a spell to change her body shape; it was too obviously _her_.

Within the hour, she was back in the apartment attached to her new pizzeria. And really, apartment was a bit of a grand term—in terms of area, it was far bigger than most apartments, but in terms of set up, it wasn't apartment like at all. There was a lower level that Lily would turn into a training area and a higher level that Lily would make into a sort of living area. A bathroom and a kitchen were also present on the higher level. Nothing more.

It still suited Lily well enough.

It was another hour's work to brew the potions and deal with the hair dye, but Lily went to sleep with brown eyes, a golden tan and black hair.

~*~

**To Be A Master**

Waking at nine, Lily dressed in jeans and a red blouse, waving her wand over her breasts. They shrunk two cup sizes and Lily took a deep breath.

"Merlin, give me the strength to get through this," she said before tying the ends of the blouse in a knot below her breasts. Taking several deep breaths, she fought down the urge to undo the knot and button the blouse. It wasn't her, this look just wasn't her! She acknowledged the look was seductive and made her look attractive, but Lily felt too exposed, like she was a slag or something of that ilk.

"And that's the point," Lily said, turning to her Occlumency. "This isn't me. No one would think it was me. Fine. There's only one thing left to do."

Waving her wand, Lily created a wooden sign for the restaurant—a bunch of green leaves on each side, to resemble a tree top, with the name written over it in black text. Another wave of her wand made the tree top three-dimensional and a final wave made the letters three-dimensional.

Walking outside, she affixed the sign in the chosen place.

"It's going to be ten soon," she said to herself. "Let's get to work, Casey."

Lily went back inside Jungle Karma Pizza.

~*~

Saturday, September 15th, 1984.

**Ottery St. Catchpole—The Burrow**

Molly was busy cooking breakfast when the Floo flared up.

"Aletha!" she said. "Are you well? Did we leave anything there last night?"

"I'm fine and no, you didn't," Aletha said. "We apologise, but we forgot to ask this last night: would you be able to take the cubs and Neville today? Neville will be arriving around eleven according to Alice, but if possible, we'd like to send the cubs now."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Is something wrong?"

"We've invited the Longbottoms, Moody and Narcissa's sister Andromeda over. We're not expecting it to go well and would rather not subject the cubs to the expected argument."

Molly nodded. "Send them on through, then."

Aletha came through with them and hugged them all. With one last admonishment to be good, Aletha returned home.

"You can go wake up the others," Molly said, hearing their feet run up the stairs. A thought crossed her mind and she crossed to the Floo to call the Lovegoods. Ginny would likely want a friend over to play as well.

~*~

**Oxford—The Pack Den**

"Remind me of the plan again?" Danger said as she prepared lunch—a seafood salad and chicken.

"Lunch, followed by talking. We suspect that Moody will be doing most of that talking. He doesn't like Death Eaters. If it gets to be late, we'll have dinner," Remus said, setting the table before going to help Danger.

"So Moody's the one likely to be trouble?"

"Andromeda might have things to say concerning the fact that we disappeared and that..."

"What?" Danger set the knife down and looked at Remus, who looked amused.

"SIRIUS!"

"What?! Oh, don't shout at me, let me come there!"

Sirius raised an eyebrow as he entered, holding a cloth in his hand. "What is it?"

"Sirius, did you ever think to reinstate Andromeda into the House of Black?" Remus said, having schooled his face into a neutral expression.

Sirius considered the question, his face paling. "Oh, _Merlin_."

"May I suggest you hurry up and reinstate her?" Narcissa said.

"That won't help the situation!" Sirius said.

"It might make her less likely to curse you when she arrives, if I follow this conversation," Danger said.

Sirius retreated from the kitchen, leaving Danger and Remus to continue preparing lunch. Narcissa rolled her eyes and followed Sirius.

Frank, Alice, Moody, Andromeda and Ted arrived more or less together around eleven. It was a relief when the expected confrontations failed to materialise, but the Pack-adults figured each of their guests had decided to keep their counsel until after eating.

Remus led the way into the sitting room after lunch and after a few minutes of silence, Andromeda cleared her throat.

"Your family has been reinstated into the House of Black," Sirius said. "You and your daughter may claim the titles of Lady Black-Tonks."

"I thank you, Lord Black," Andromeda said. "My sister, my lord?"

"Narcissa Black is a ward of the House of Black," Sirius said.

Moody's eye whizzed around. "You're subject to a number of restrictions?"

"I am," Narcissa said.

"It might interest you to know that Severus Snape is not in Azkaban and is completely free of any restrictions."

There was about three seconds of silence before the room exploded in a cacaphony of sound.

~*~

**Ottery St. Catchpole—The Burrow**

Fred and George looked at the newcomers. The girls had separated from the others, leaving the boys together. Fred had appropriated Molly's wand for this prank, against his mother's orders. But the temptation of pranks—as always—proved too great.

Touching the wand to the Dungbombs to set them off quicker, Fred and George lobbed several at both groups, to the expected result.

Ginny and Luna shrieked and ran for the safety of the house and Molly, whilst Neville looked disgusted. Ron glared, but he'd seen the girls running for the house.

"Fred! George!" Molly said as she stormed outside. "I have warned you about pulling pranks! And especially when we have guests!"

Fred and George weren't paying attention to her. They were focused on Draco, Harry and Hermione, who had not reacted at all to the prank except to do what little they could to get the Dungbombs off them. It was freaky and definitely not what they were used to at all. Pranks caused chaos and people got mad—that was a fact in their lives.

"Are you even listening to me?!"

They gulped and turned their attention to their mother.

Hermione made her way over to Draco and Harry.

"We talk to Moony and Padfoot."

Her words were met with two evil grins.

~*~

**Oxford—The Pack Den**

It had taken a full ten minutes to get everyone calmed down and then a further twenty for Moody to explain what he knew.

"So it boils down to Dumbledore protecting Snape," Danger said. "Why would he do that?"

"Anyone is far more useful outside Azkaban than inside Azkaban," Frank said. "But what use does Albus have for Snape?"

"He was the Order's spy," Sirius said. "Nothing else comes to mind."

They looked at each other.

"That... fits in with a belief we've held for a while," Aletha said. "We don't think You-Know-Who is gone. Dumbledore doesn't think so either—therefore keeping Snape out of Azkaban makes him valuable to both the Order and to You-Know-Who, should he ever return."

"Seems a rather long shot," Moody said. "Even if he still is out there, who says he'll return in time for Snape to be of any use?"

"He is still out there," Narcissa said. "The Mark has faded, yes, but it has not disappeared."

She drew back her sleeve and revealed the Mark, feeling Moody's magical eye linger on it for a few minutes.

"Then be prepared," Moody said. "He will want to move against all of you if he does return."

"We know," Sirius said. "We'll be waiting."

~*~

Tuesday, September 18th, 1984.

**Maidstone—Willow Shade**

"Seventeen days and still no word," Andromeda said over breakfast. "You'd think she'd be itching to write us and tell us all about Hogwarts."

"And how long did it take you to write your parents?" Ted said.

"I didn't. I didn't want to hear back from them about their daughter becoming a Ravenclaw rather than a Slytherin."

Andromeda finished her breakfast and carried her plate over to the sink where she dropped it on the floor and turned to Ted.

"She's a Slytherin. Oh, Merlin. That's why she hasn't owled. She thinks I'm going to be ashamed of her..."

Ted shook his wife, staring at her. "_Are_ you going to be ashamed of her, Dromeda?"

"Of course not!"

"But she doesn't know that—"

He was cut off by Nymphadora's owl swooping into the room with a letter, which was duly opened and read.

_I'm Slytherin._ _Don't be mad._

"Five words? Five words? I waited seventeen days for _five words_?!" Andromeda paced the length of the kitchen, her nervous and somewhat hysterical energy needing an outlet. "I let my little girl go off to Hogwarts and I had to wait seventeen days for a letter of five words!"

"Dromeda, she's scared!" Ted said, with a little more force than necessary. "You were a Ravenclaw to avoid being painted as one of the Dark Blacks. Now, our daughter is a Black, in Slytherin. Why would she have done that?"

"I don't know. But I'm damn well going to find out."

Ted looked at his wife. "Let it go for now," he said. "She will tell us what she's doing when she judges it right. Just as you once did."

Andromeda looked at Ted and nodded, though her eyes lost none of their determination. He was right, she could admit that much. But she was not satisfied, not one whit.

~*~

Saturday, September 22nd, 1984.

**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**

Nymphadora looked around, calculating her odds. They didn't look good—she was up against seven older students; four Slytherins and one each from the other houses.

"What do you want?" Nymphadora said, wishing she could get to her wand without them noticing.

"We've heard things about you," the apparent ringleader said. "You're a Metamorphmagus."

"So?" Nymphadora said, all the while thinking, _Shit, shit, shit!_

"We can use a Metamorphmagus."

Nymphadora paled and pressed herself against the wall.

"_Stupefy!_"

It was two voices in tandem and Nymphadora didn't hesitate to take advantage, whipping out her wand and adding her own Stunning spell to the mix. She caught a glimpse of red hair. With three of Nymphadora's unwanted paramours down and the possibility of the professors coming along, the other four thought better of pressing the issue and left, dragging their friends with them.

"Thanks," Nymphadora said, putting her wand away as the others did the same. "I'm Tonks."

"Bill Weasley. This is my brother, Charlie," Bill said. "You okay?"

"Yeah. They were just being annoying."

Bill fixed her with a gaze. "I heard what they said. You're a—"

"I don't like to spread it around," Nymphadora said, looking back at the two Weasleys. "I don't know how _they_ found out, but when I do..."

"I'll help," Charlie said.

"Why would Gryffindors help a Slytherin?" Nymphadora said, careful to keep her tone neutral. She did not want to antagonise these two, but the animosity between the two Houses _was_ legendary.

"No one deserves to be treated badly for something they cannot control. You didn't ask to be what you are," Bill said. "Your House doesn't matter."

Charlie nodded in support of his brother's words and stuck out his hand. "Friends?"

Without hesitation, Nymphadora shook Charlie's hand. "Friends."

It was just in time, too, for Professor Flitwick came upon the scene and escorted them to the headmaster's office.

~*~

**Hogwarts—Headmaster's Office**

"It's my fault," Bill said, looking at Albus. "Seven on one; it didn't seem that I'd find a teacher in time. So I defended Tonks and told my brother to do the same. If anyone has to be punished, it should be me."

"Why were you accosted, Miss Tonks?" Albus said.

"They wanted..." Nymphadora's breathing began to grow erratic, now that the adrenaline of the fight had receded and what had almost happened began to sink in. Charlie squeezed her hand in comfort.

"From what I heard, they wanted to use her Metamorphmagus abilities for their own benefit," Bill said, adding an inflection to the last word.

"Not entirely unexpected," Albus said. "This is why we had wanted to keep Miss Tonks' ability a secret. Miss Tonks, you can be sure that I will be looking into who leaked this secret and why." He looked at Charlie. "Take her to Madam Pomfrey, Mister Weasley. She will take care of Miss Tonks."

Charlie nodded and the two first years left.

"Do you know what a Pensieve is, Mr Weasley?" Albus said.

"I think so," Bill said. "You use it to view memories, don't you?"

"Indeed. I would like to see your memory of the event. I wish to determine the people who had confronted Miss Tonks."

~*~

**Punishment Due**

In the end, the seven had not done anything to Nymphadora, beyond harrassing and threatening her and Albus could only assign them detention, rather than suspension or expulsion. But given their intentions, Albus had made it as harsh as he could—detention for the rest of the school year.

When they had left his office, with the threat of expulsion hanging over their heads if a like incident happened again, Albus looked at Fawkes.

"Even with Voldemort gone, the evils he perpetrated remain," Albus said. "The war is over, but the battles continue."

Fawkes let out a trill and Albus nodded.

"Perhaps, old friend."

~*~

Sunday, September 23rd, 1984.

**Hogwarts—Slytherin Common Room**

Slytherin House is not a House that promotes unity. There is an illusion of unity presented to the other Houses, but once past the stone wall entrance, that illusion is shattered. Inside the Slytherin Commons, it is every Slytherin for themself. Their heirarchy is based on power, knowledge, influence and purity of blood, as are most of the things within Slytherin. There are no dormitories—instead each student has their own room. The Slytherins are measured by how their rooms are protected from unwanted intrusions.

The prevailing message is clear: trust no one.

Nymphadora certainly didn't.

Any homework she did in the common room was done in a corner, preventing attacks coming unawares. She asked no favours unless she had already performed a favour to use as leverage, for she wasn't about to allow any Slytherin to have leverage on her. Painful lessons to have learned so quickly, but she had learned them.

She looked up from her homework, noting the common room had emptied out.

"Thank you, Salazar," she said. On the whole, Nymphadora preferred the common room to be empty; it was less dangerous then. Though since the previous day's incident, she hadn't been harassed once, which was a welcome change from the several come-ons and such a day she had been dealing with.

Gathering her homework, she stood up and then froze, looking to the side of the fireplace.

The wall had slid aside, revealing a passage.

With a quick look around the common room, Nymphadora entered the passage.

"How do I make you close? I don't want the others finding this place..."

Someone must have liked Nymphadora, for the wall shifted back into place, leaving her with a sense of having used up her one free chance. She turned back around and stepped forward.

She was sliding uphill before the sensation stopped, leaving her confined. A lot of scrabbling brought herself out from under a bed, along with a portrait frame and Nymphadora looked around a bedroom decorated in green.

"What is this place?"

"Well, I might be able to help."

Nymphadora jumped and looked about.

"No need to be scared! I'm in the portrait!"

Nymphadora set the portrait up on the bed. A dark haired man with green eyes looked back at her, a curious look crossing his face.

"Who are you?"

"You can call me Al. You'd be Nymphadora?"

Nymphadora swallowed. "How do you know? And if you know that, you should know that it's _Tonks_."

"Word gets around. I'm surprised you found this place, but in any case, you have found it. Possession being nine-tenths of the law, along with the fact that any previous tenants won't be returning to claim this place... this place belongs to you, more or less."

"How did I get here?"

"You said the password. By the way, saying the password again will close the entrance."

"Thank you, Salazar?"

"That'd be it. So my advice? You explore this place; see what you make of it. Word says you're a Metamorphmagus—one of the rooms here is a library. There'll be a book in there, by a Verity Black, first known Metamorphmagus. You'll find it helpful."

Nymphadora nodded. Al gave her a smile and waved her off, so she exited the room.

The room beyond was octagonal and with a look back into the green bedroom, Nymphadora theorised all of the rooms would be the same shape. She wondered why before looking around the main room. These walls were grey stone, each hung with a banner above a door. The banner above this door, as well as the one next to it on the left, was green. The next two banners to the left were yellow, red adorned the opposite walls, and blue to Nymphadora's right completed the circle.

"Something to do with the Founders," she said, before looking at the center of the room, where a round table stood. Twelve chairs there were, three to each colour.

With Al's words to her ringing in her ears, but also curious about the other rooms, Nymphadora went to her left, giving each room a cursory look.

The first of each coloured door held a bedroom, which proved of little interest. The Quidditch pitch behind the second green door and the kitchen behind the second red door were also of no interest—the less said about her abilities in these arenas the better.

Were it not for the book, Nymphadora would have spent longer in the bathroom behind the second yellow door. With a promise to come back, she headed for the second blue door, unsurprised to find the library there.

She ignored the piano, looking at the eight walls of shelves, crammed with books.

"How am I supposed to find one book amongst what must be thousands?"

Examining a shelf, she raised an eyebrow. Many of these texts were first edition copies of texts that had thought to be lost. The range and skill level of topics was mind boggling—Masteries, subjects beyond Hogwarts.

"The Ravenclaws would kill for this. You could learn for your lifetime and yet not learn everything here," she said. "Now, where is that book?"

She pulled out her wand and watched as the room responded, forming a pedestal in the center of the room. Crossing to this, she found an open book. Tapping the book with her wand, the book and pedestal melted away and a book appeared.

_Metamorphmagi Explained_, by Verity Black.

~*~

**Unknown—Beginning Training**

_The three most important things a Metamorphmagus needs are: clear understanding of what they look like naturally, a clear understanding of the human body—skeleton, musculature, organs, reproductive organs—and an ability to visualise what they wish to change to._

Nymphadora shut _Metamorphmagi Explained_ and looked about the main room of what she termed the Hideaway. The table and chairs were gone and in their place was a large bed, surrounded by mirrors. Off to one side was a stack of medical books. Biting her lip, Nymphadora began to strip off her clothing. Her Metamorph abilities had manifested themselves almost at once after she was born, but she had never taken it beyond changing the colour and length of her hair, as well as the colour of her eyes and skin.

Her mother had warned her against doing more than this before she was older—there was no telling what morphing her bones would do, when they had not had sufficient time to fuse and grow properly. However, Nymphadora had read _Metamorphmagi Explained_ twice, which stated:

_The skeleton and musculature of a Metamorphmagus may be morphed at any stage of development, without fear of harm to the Metamorphmagi's body, as constant morphing will speed up a Metamorphmagus' skeletal and musculature development until it has reached full adult development._

It may have been stupid to trust the book, but Nymphadora had no reason to not trust it. She let her underwear fall to the ground as she climbed onto the bed, watching herself in the mirrors. With nary a change in her expression, her hair became a light, soft brown and her eyes darkened. This was her natural form, which she considered a bit too plain. Her mirror images tossed her wicked grins before they assumed different poses, allowing Nymphadora to see all of herself without hindrance.

Taking only a minute to wonder when she would start becoming more womanly, Nymphadora looked at the mirrors, trying to memorise her body.

~*~

Friday, September 28th, 1984.

**Hogwarts—Library**

"Tonks! Oi, Tonks! Wait up!"

Nymphadora turned around, grinning as she saw Charlie. "Yeah?"

"We've got the afternoon off; d'you want to study together in the library?" Charlie said.

"Sure," said Nymphadora. "I can tutor you in Transfiguration; you'll need it."

"Just because I accidentally Transfigured the needle into a porcupine in our first lesson," Charlie said, his voice heated. "McGonagall still gave me five points."

"For sheer dumb luck," Nymphadora said. She grabbed his hand. "Come on."

The library was deserted, so within minutes, they had their work spread out on a table. As they worked on their homework, Nymphadora hummed to herself, thinking.

"Hey, Charlie?" Nymphadora said as she switched assignments.

"Yeah?" Charlie said.

"If I told you a secret, would you keep it?" Nymphadora said, a serious expression crossing her face.

"Yeah," Charlie said, leaning in.

"No, I mean it," Nymphadora said. "You can't tell anyone. But this is too good to not share, so I've got to tell _someone_!"

Charlie regarded the young Slytherin. The idea that she was having him on crossed his mind briefly, but he dismissed that notion as soon as it came. She deserved the benefit of the doubt this time, he figured. If it turned out to be a trick, he wouldn't trust her again. But his gut trusted Nymphadora.

"I promise," he said. "What is it?"

Nymphadora thought to herself. "Can you get me into the Gryffindor common room?"

~*~

**Hogwarts—Gryffindor Common Room**

Charlie poked Nymphadora and in response, her eyes and ears morphed. Now that she could see and hear again, she looked around the room, heading over to the fireplace.

"Don't you have a fireplace in your own common room?" Charlie said, feeling a little put out.

"Yeah, but come over," Nymphadora said. "Thank you, Godric."

Charlie came over, his jaw dropping as the secret passageway opened.

"Get in," Nymphadora said, shoving Charlie in and slipping in herself, closing the entrance.

When she landed on the bed, she was unsurprised to see Charlie had gone to explore. She caught up with him in the main room, laughing at his expression. He was staring at the floor, which had a symbol emblazoned upon it: a scalene triangle encircled such that the apex was a beginning point of the circle's circumference and the longer side of the triangle was just inside the open circle. From where Nymphadora stood, the scalene triangle was upside down in the image. Furthermore, at the bottom of the symbol, a half circle was drawn in between the edge of the triangle and open circle.

"What's the symbol?" Charlie said.

"No idea," Nymphadora said. "I can make the rooms be what I need or want, but for the life of me, that symbol does not go away. It's weird; I can't find anything in the books here to explain it."

"What is this place?" Charlie said, looking at the other rooms.

"No idea," Nymphadora said. "I found it by accident. I've been calling it the Hideaway. Anyway, I want to talk to Al."

"There's someone living here?" Charlie said, following Nymphadora into the green bedroom.

Behind them, the symbol disappeared from the floor.

"Hey, Al," Nymphadora said.

"Welcome back, Nymphadora.," Al said, grinning as Nymphadora winced, though it was less pronounced. She was getting used to it, though the glare she gave Charlie was clear in meaning: do not use the name. "You brought a friend?"

"Yes. I was wondering... can you tell us more about this place?" Nymphadora said. "Like where the entrances turn out and all? I guess the bedrooms lead to the common rooms and the passwords are 'Thank you, founder', depending on which room you're coming to, but are there others?"

Al regarded them. "You're quick, Nymphadora. Well, I can tell you this. You can restrict the passages. 'Founder says, respond only to' and then state the names. And if you say, 'stealth mode, thank you founder' no one will see you exit or enter."

"The other entrances?" Charlie said.

Al shrugged. "Sorry. You'll have to find those yourself. Oh, you'll need to know: the restriction of passages requires you to be in the passage."

Al left the frame and Charlie and Nymphadora looked at each other before Nymphadora climbed under the bed. Charlie went off to the red bedroom and once the two passageways were restricted, they met up in the main room.

"So what do you do here?" Charlie said.

"I practice my Metamorph skills," Nymphadora said. "And for that matter, the green bedroom is off limits if you come down here alone. I might be in there."

"Why can't I come in?" Charlie said.

"As a Metamorph, I need to be familiar with my body, which means being naked," Nymphadora said, grinning as Charlie blushed.

"How are we going to get into the other common rooms?" Charlie said, deciding to ignore what Nymphadora had said. "I figure it would be easier that way, rather than trying to wander around the rooms. It took me several tries before I worked out that three jumps on the bed and saying, 'Thank you, Godric' on the third jump got me up to the Gryffindor common room."

Tonks nodded. "But how are we going to get into the common rooms? Stealth mode means we'll get to the entrances easily, but that means we'll disappear from the common rooms and that'll raise questions."

No answer could be decided, so it was put aside for further thought.

~*~

**Hogwarts—The Hideaway**

A growling noise alerted the two that it was dinner-time—past it, in fact—and they ascended into the Gryffindor common room and set off to the Great Hall. Nymphadora hadn't morphed this time because she'd pointed out that she could easily sneak back in and find out where it was located.

"I'm not giving you the password," Charlie said.

"Okay," Nymphadora said. "I don't need it; I have my own."

Charlie gave her a light shove and Nymphadora grinned, dancing back and for once, staying upright. Her luck didn't stay long, for when they reached the second floor, Nymphadora stepped into a flood of water and went ass over tits, slamming into the wall. Charlie didn't move to help her, staring instead at the foot high words that were positioned between two windows. From the colour, Charlie was sure they were daubed in blood.

_The Chamber of Secrets has been opened.  
Enemies of the Heir, beware._

Nymphadora struggled to sit up and just managed to swallow a scream—Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat was hanging by her tail from a torch bracket, but she was silent. Charlie looked himself and swallowed. The cat stared, unseeing into the distance, stiffer than death.

"Come on," Charlie said. "We need to get out of here."

Nymphadora nodded and used the wall to get up, but the moment she put weight on her left foot, she screamed and collapsed.

"Or we can stay here. Staying here's good too," Charlie said.

Nymphadora was in too much pain to say anything, leaving Charlie to wonder how to get her to the Hospital Wing. That question was speedily resolved by the rumblings of the school below them and Charlie sighed, going over to Nymphadora.

The rumbling of the students got closer and closer until it ceased with startling abruptness.

Charlie only looked up—noting that Nymphadora had fainted—when Filch began shouting.

"Mrs. Norris! What's happened to my cat?!"

"Argus," Dumbledore said, coming on the scene, detaching Mrs. Norris and conjuring a stretcher for Nymphadora. "Come with me. You too, Mr. Weasley. Minerva, Severus?"

Charlie stood up, watching as Nymphadora was levitated onto the stretcher. Ignoring the mutterings of Filch, Charlie followed the group to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey began to examine Nymphadora, too absorbed in the task to comment when Mrs. Norris was placed on another bed. After long minutes of examining and some attempts at spell, Dumbledore looked up at Filch.

"She's not dead," he said. "Merely Petrified. Mr Weasley and Miss Tonks are not responsible for this, it would take Dark Magic of the most advanced—"

"Then what Petrified my cat?!" Filch said, his face purpling.

"I cannot say," Dumbledore said, frowning. "Mr Weasley."

"Professor Dumbledore?" Charlie said.

"How came you upon the scene?"

Charlie hesitated, unsure of how much to admit to. "Tonks and I were in the Gryffindor common room—"

"That is against the rules," Snape said, his voice smooth.

Charlie squared his shoulders. "I looked at the rules," he said. "And there was nothing in the rules that says a member of another house is prohibited from entering the common room of another House."

"He is correct, Severus," McGonagall said. "It does not happen often, but there has never been—and _will_ never be—a rule saying it cannot."

"So we'd been in there since the afternoon, since we don't have lessons and we lost track of time," Charlie said. "When we realised how late it was, we headed down to get some dinner. Tonks slipped on the water and slammed into the wall; when she tried to stand she screamed. Then everyone came."

Dumbledore looked at Charlie and nodded, before Madam Pomfrey cleared her throat.

"I've fixed Miss Tonks' ankle, but she'll have to stay here until tomorrow. I've given her a dose of Dreamless Sleep, so I don't expect her to wake until tomorrow."

"Very well," Dumbledore said. "Come, Severus. Minerva, if you would have the elves bring Mr Weasley some dinner?"

~*~

Saturday, September 29th, 1984.

**Ocean Bluff—Jungle Karma Pizza**

Adam bowed to Rocky and Aisha, who attacked following their own bow. Caught off guard, Adam was forced into a defensive position and the other two pressed their advantage.

Lily watched the fight, one eye on the time. She would need to go open up to let one of the regulars in; a quiet girl who was always carrying books. She would buy drinks and the occasional pizza, so Lily let her be rather than chasing her out, as she had been forced to do with other customers when they took up tables without buying anything.

"Enough," Lily said after a while, shaking her head to clear it of a strange feeling, watching her students assemble in front of her. "You're showing good progress, all of you."

The teens nodded.

"Practice your blocking. I have to go open up."

Lily left them to their practice, going downstairs to find a small crowd of customers waiting. She pulled on her apron, took several pizza orders and headed into the kitchen. A wave of her wand had three pizza bases spread out and upon pocketing her wand, she began to make the pizzas. It was one of her personal rules: magic could be used to clean up and to set herself up for pizza making, but everything else was done the Muggle way.

Well, almost everything.

The oven for the pizzas was enspelled with a few charms that kept it at the right temperature for cooking. This gave Lily a slight advantage in that with a mere tap of a wand, the oven was ready—no waiting for it to warm up or cool down.

The pizzas were in the oven as soon as Lily could manage it and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, she went back out into the main room, surveying her customers.

Everything was fine.

Still, she could not help feeling uneasy—as though a dark presence had encroached on her territory.

~*~

**Pai Zhua Academy**

Master Mao looked over the new entrants to the Academy.

An uneasy feeling spread through him when he met the hard eyes of Jarrod. Jarrod was a good student, but he was too easily swayed to the dark path, thinking himself above the others. Master Mao ignored it, looking at the four entrants. He knew of RJ from Master Finn, but the others were not known to him. Nevertheless, he would soon know them all.

"You will be shown to your dorms to unpack," Master Mao said. "Then we will commence assessment. Jarrod, take them to the dorms."

The four cubs stood and made the ritual bow before exiting the area after Jarrod.

~*~

Monday, October 1st, 1984.

**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**

It was all the school could talk about—with good reason. Nothing like this had happened in years, even during the war, for Hogwarts had been impenetrable. And with something solid to focus their attentions on, the rumors filled Hogwarts.

_The Chamber of Secrets has been opened..._

The Gryffindors were certain it was a Slytherin, most likely a sixth or seventh year. Someone who had profited badly by the defeat of You-Know-You—and there were plenty of those. Not that they were saying the students had been Death Eaters, but with the Death Eaters in Azkaban, many students had been left without family guidance, thrust into the position of family head.

The Ravenclaws _knew_ it had to have been Dark Magic, unparalleled in almost all of history and so Dark that You-Know-Who would have killed his own father to learn the secret. The problem was that information on anything that Dark could not be found in Hogwarts, and without a better idea of what to look for than 'unparalleled in all of history' and 'worth killing your father to learn of', they were stumped.

The Hufflepuffs decided it was more important to keep everyone as safe as possible and began encouraging buddy systems and check-in points around the castle. Whoever was behind the attacks would find a group of people harder to deal with than just one and checking in around the castle would help to know when to start panicking about someone's absence.

_The Chamber of Secrets has been opened..._

The Slytherins looked around the Common Room.

"So the Chamber's been opened?"

"The Gryffindors think it was one of us."

"Was it?"

"How should I know? It wasn't me."

"Course it wasn't, but if it was, you wouldn't say. I wouldn't."

"Was it you?"

"No!"

"Right..."

_The Chamber of Secrets has been opened..._

The professors didn't know what to do. Some of them—Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick—were old enough to have been at Hogwarts the last time the Chamber was reported to have opened, but the Chamber had not been found then, nor would it be found this time, if history remained the same. Nor had it escaped them the significance of where the message was written. None of that seemed to matter when the teachers were called upon to restrain Filch from being harsh beyond reason with the students, as if that would bring back his beloved Mrs. Norris.

And it reached the ears of the portrait Al via the testimony of Nymphadora and Charlie.

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware," Al said. "And Mrs. Norris was petrified. Well. Isn't _that_ just fucking lovely."

"Most of the students seem pleased with it," Nymphadora said, withering under Al's look.

"It's not about the blasted cat!" Al said. He looked around. "Has the Chamber ever been opened before?"

Charlie looked at Nymphadora.

"Some of the sixth and seventh years have said it was opened forty-two years ago and someone died then," Nymphadora said.

"But it wasn't found then, was it?" Al said.

"The Chamber wasn't found, nor was the monster," Nymphadora said, "but they expelled the student responsible."

Al paced back and forth, receiving worrying looks from the two students. He seemed to reach a decision and strode out of the portrait, calling out, "Keep me updated."

~*~

Tuesday, October 2nd, 1984.

**Warnings**

"Minerva."

"Severus. Is there a problem?"

"The Weasley children."

Minerva arched an eyebrow. "Are you referring to their friendship with Miss Tonks?"

"Indeed."

"What of it, Severus? They have formed a friendship, unheeding of their House affiliation—the elder Mr Weasley less so, but he still acknowledges her as a friend. That is something to be glad of."

"It is also unwise. The Slytherins do not trust Miss Tonks, nor do they trust the Weasley children."

"They should try. They might find themselves surprised."

Severus looked at Minerva before walking away. There was nothing he could do, that much was obvious. The association would continue. There was nothing he could do for Nymphadora if she would set herself against her classmates like this.

~*~

**Something Not Quite Right**

Hagrid frowned, looking around at the rooster corpses.

"Summat not righ' here," he said. "Best tell Dumbledore."

~*~

**Hogwarts—The Hideway**

Nymphadora entered the green bedroom, glancing over at the empty portrait. The room responded to her wishes and covered it with a black cloth as she climbed onto the bed. The mirrors appeared around the bed and her reflections assumed their familiar positions. It was boring work; there was no getting around that.

"Maybe if I had tits it'd be more fun to look at myself," Nymphadora said, focusing on her back. The faint lattice of scars criss-crossed her back, the legacy of accidental magic that had blown Nymphadora through two windows in a department store. By the time everything had been sorted with the muggle hospital so she could be transferred to St. Mungo's, it had been too late to eradicate the scarring.

"The book says I can get rid of those..." Nymphadora said, her eyes taking in the details.

There came a knock at the door and Nymphadora frowned, burrowing under the sheets, watching her reflections disappear.

"Come in!"

Charlie entered the room, looking at the mirrors before deciding to not ask.

"What do you think about this Chamber business?" Charlie said, leaning against the wall.

Nymphadora gave a half shrug that couldn't be seen and spoke. "I have no idea. The Heir's Salazar, that much seems obvious. Go get my bag from outside and I'll get dressed. There's something I want to check."

Nymphadora took her bag as she exited the green bedroom and pulled out _Hogwarts, a History_. Flipping through the pages, she nodded and handed the book to Charlie.

"Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago," Nymphadora said, "by Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin. They built Hogwarts in an age of persecution from the Muggles, hence the remote location. Seeking out those with magical talent, they educated them for several years. However, Slytherin believed that the Muggleborns could not be trusted and wished to refrain from educating them and this led to a rift between him and the other Founders, which in turn led to an argument between Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin and so Salazar left Hogwarts."

Charlie stopped reading and looked at Nymphadora.

"The legend says Salazar built a secret chamber in the school and that it was unknown to the other Founders," Nymphadora said. "Even with magic, I wonder how he managed that. According to the legend, Salazar sealed the Chamber so that only his own true heir could open it and unleash the monster that resides within the Chamber, purging the school of all those unworthy to study magic."

"You worried?" Charlie said.

"Nah," Nymphadora said. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"I guess we'll find out now you've asked," Charlie said.

Nymphadora winced. "Yeah."

~*~

Wednesday, October 3rd, 1984.

**Oxford—The Pack Den**

Narcissa had considered her options for several weeks, discarding each as it proved unsuitable.

The idea of confronting and accusing him was satisfying to an extent, but she knew that would get her nowhere. The information she wanted would not come to her that way—it would be guarded even more to ensure she did not get to know it.

Sycophancy might work, were he Nott, or Dolohov, or even Pettigrew. But he was not; he would see right through that attempt and would not tolerate it.

_And I had enough of being sycophantic with the Dark Lord,_ Narcissa thought. _So that is out as well. I could approach as an equal; that would gain me the greatest foothold of the three. The only problem with that is that I need a bloody escort._

Narcissa scowled. _But they are fair; they always escort me when I ask. But no. Best to keep this as private as this ever can be. Sending an owl will serve to open communication and may catch him off guard._

~*~

**Treading A Cautious Path**

The letter was dropped on the table and picked up mere seconds later. Curious eyes scanned the letter, which raised questions he was not sure he wanted answers to.

The first and most pressing was her reason for writing.

"Her timing is three years too late; surely if she had anything, then would have been the time to use it."

It may have been easier if he could have passed this off as a simple reconnecting of old acquaintances, but his life didn't allow for such allowances.

"But what if she does have something? She is no stranger to the dark path."

Uncertain, he pulled parchment towards him and began to craft his letter.

It took him some time, for each sentence had to be properly phrased, in order that his correspondant understand the implicit message that anyone else would not see.

~*~

**A Swath Of Letters**

_Nymphadora,_ _Your professors tell me you are often absent from the school. Care to explain?_ _Andromeda._

~*~

_Mum,_ _Not particularly._ _Tonks._

~*~

_Nymphadora,_ _It wasn't optional._

~*~

_Mum,_ _Just because they can't find me doesn't mean I've left the school._

~*~

_Nymphadora,_ _Explain yourself. Now._

~*~

_Mother,_ _I won't explain myself in a letter and I can't explain much anyway. I am completely safe, however. I ask that you accept that._ _Nymphadora Black Tonks._

~*~

_Nymphadora,_ _Given the state of this poor owl, I shall leave it at that. But do not think that I will not be demanding answers at Christmastime. You're good, but you'll need to be much better before you can pull the wool over your mother's eyes._ _Andromeda Black Tonks._

~*~

Monday, October 22nd, 1984.

**Oxford—The Pack Den**

"Sirius, what do I do?" Andromeda said, arraying the letters from Nymphadora on the table, along with her own.

Sirius glanced over the letters and then looked up at Andromeda. "You're asking me to help you with a girl who is perhaps breaking rules, or has found a loophole and is exploiting it for all it's worth?"

Andromeda blinked. "Yes, you're right, this _was_ a stupid idea. Maybe Aletha can help me."

"Andromeda, what is the problem?" Sirius said. "You didn't come to me to ask for advice on Nymphadora's rule bending. What did you want?"

Andromeda sighed and sank into her seat. "She's a Slytherin, Sirius. A Slytherin."

To his credit, Sirius did not react to this piece of news. "Go on," he said, his eyes on Andromeda's face, reading every change in her expression.

"I'm worried about my daughter; you remember what the Slytherins were like in our time," Andromeda said. "More to the point, present day Slytherin contains the children and other relatives of the incarcerated Death Eaters. Nymphadora does not know how to survive in the environment."

"I acknowledge the points made," Sirius said. He paused, considering the alternatives of his next sentence, of which there were none. "What do you want, Andromeda Black Tonks?"

"I ask you, Lord Black, write to my daughter," Andromeda said. "Make her see sense, that she must remain where she can be found at all times, within the school. Tell her to request a resorting into another House; Ravenclaw would suit her, for she wanted a staff just as Rowena Ravenclaw had."

"You would have me demand _Iusiurandum Familiae_ from Nymphadora?" Sirius said. He expected Andromeda to deny it—the Oath of the Family was not a plaything, even amongst the Darkest families.

"No, my lord," Andromeda said.

Sirius watched her expression and gave a grim smile. "You are lying, Andromeda."

Andromeda remained silent, her eyes remaining on Sirius.

"Andromeda Black Tonks, I, Lord Sirius Black, Head of the House of Black, demand _Iusiurandum Familiae_ from you," Sirius said, feeling the magic swirl about, surging in intensity before dying down in waves. "You will swear to leave your daughter, Nymphadora Black Tonks by name, at peace over her placement in Slytherin House and where she spends her time outside of class. Nor will you harass her by covert means. Furthermore, I reserve the right to amend, add or subtract from the terms of this swearing as I see fit."

Andromeda matched Sirius' gaze, her eyes cold.

"She is Slytherin, Andromeda," Sirius said. "You know that we have no say in it."

"Fine," Andromeda said. "I, Andromeda Black Tonks, acknowledge the demand of _Iusiurandum Familiae_ and so swear by the demands made by my Head of House, Lord Black."

The magic snapped towards Andromeda, coalescing into a black wristband an inch wide and engraved with a serpentine B. Andromeda frowned and it shifted to her left wrist.

"Tell me, Andromeda, when did you send the most recent letter?" Sirius said, tapping the letter with his wand.

"This morning, my lord," Andromeda said.

Sirius nodded and sighed. "I did not want to have to do that, Andromeda."

"Yet you did it anyway," Andromeda said, rising from her seat and striding to the front door. She paused and turned back. "You must know you have the right to change the terms of the swearing regardless of whether you said it in the terms or not. Why did you, my lord?"

Sirius looked at her. "I am not unfair, Andromeda. If I have to change those terms in the interests of Nymphadora, I will. But I will not let you assume the terms are set in stone—that is wholly unfair to you."

"I see," Andromeda said. She Disapparated, but Sirius caught her parting words. "Thank you, Sirius..."

~*~

Wednesday, October 24th, 1984.

**Hogwarts—Gryffindor Common Room**

"Bugger," Nymphadora said, reading her mother's letter.

"What's wrong?" Bill said. He was sitting with Nymphadora and Charlie; he didn't often do this, but his presence seemed to lessen the disapproval of a Slytherin being in the Gryffindor common room.

"I tried to go all 'family' on her to get her to back off on something; I even signed my name to the letter," Nymphadora said. "She backed off for now, but she saw right through my tactics."

"Mothers do that," Bill said. "I remember once, I wanted to get... well, I don't remember what it was. So I asked for it, was told no, kind of sulked for a day and then tried being good. Mum let it go on for a week before she informed me that it would do no good."

"That sucks," Nymphadora said.

"He got an ice-cream out of it, though," Charlie said. "Which he almost lost when he said something like an ice cream wasn't worth it, but one glare from mum and he took it."

"Be fair, I was only seven," Bill said.

Nymphadora turned back to her homework, rolling up the parchment. "I'm done."

Charlie closed his books with a thump. "Me too. You can leave your stuff here, Tonks."

"Safer if I don't," Nymphadora said, picking up her bag.

Charlie bit his tongue and nodded.

The three went downstairs for dinner, with Bill slightly in the lead. Charlie and Tonks were startled when Bill whipped out his wand, pushing them back against the wall. Then they heard the sound of running footsteps and Bill looked around the corner with caution.

"Rowena, Godric and Helga!" Bill said, stepping out into the hallway. "Samantha!"

A Hufflepuff girl was standing stock still in the hallway. Charlie and Tonks followed Bill, watching him tap Samantha's shoulder. She didn't respond and Bill gave a grim smile.

"Petrified. And I didn't even look around the corner until it was too late," he said. "Get Dumbledore.

~*~

**Hogwarts—Hospital Wing**

Nymphadora held back a yawn. Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape had all questioned them over and over, but it had been no use: they knew nothing, were guilty of nothing and even Snape had been forced to concede that Bill's choice of caution was the best thing—if he had stepped out to see who the person was, he might have been petrified as well, making his information useless.

Samantha's mother had been summoned to Hogwarts, which was not the greatest of ideas. A Muggle, she was not against magic, but nor did she embrace it without reservations. Hearing that her daughter had been petrified by assailants unknown led to a screaming match between her and McGonagall and the underhanded application of a Calming Charm and she had been given a chair next to Samantha. Her youngest daughter was bouncing up and down on Samantha, poking her and trying to get a response.

Nymphadora looked up at the little girl from her bed—Madam Pomfrey had insisted that she and the Weasleys spend the night after their prolonged questioning—and with a quick wave of her wand and a muttered incantation, the little girl floated over to Nymphadora.

"That was fun!" the little girl giggled. "Do it again!"

With a grin, Nymphadora cast the levitation spell again and floated her over to Charlie, who floated her back to Nymphadora.

"Better not do anything more," Nymphadora said. "What's your name?"

"April Grace," April said. "And that's Sammie, my big sis! She can do magic! Can you?"

"We all can here," Charlie said. "Hogwarts is a school for learning magic."

"Can I learn magic?" April said. "Can I?"

Nymphadora pulled her wand out, handing it to April. "Let's see."

April waved the wand, but nothing happened. Charlie offered his wand, and there _seemed_ to be a light show, but when she took up Bill's wand, April managed to make every bed in the infirmary lose its legs.

"That was fun!" she said, watching the students wince.

"If you three would mind settling down... what did you do to the beds?" Madam Pomfrey said.

"Accidental magic from little April," Charlie said. "She wanted to learn magic, so we let her wave our wands."

"Well, keep it to yourselves for the moment; I think their mother has had all she can take," Madam Pomfrey said.

~*~

**Hogwarts—Unknown**

The curtains were drawn around the bed, with a light illuminating the pages.

_I woke up again... I can't keep having these blackouts._ **It'll be okay. You're just overtired. You are Muggleborn, after all; it's not surprising that all this magic work is tiring you out.** _I'm just as good any pureblood!_ **I didn't say you weren't, but you must admit that they've grown up around magic, they've had opportunities to do magic that you never had, so they're more used to the demanding nature.** _Well... I guess that's true. But why is it so demanding?_ **Magic is just like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it is. Now, you haven't really used magic before September first of this year, so your magic is... learning, for lack of a better word, to do what you want it to, when you want it to. Remember McGonagall's matchstick to needle Transfiguration? You had the incantation and the wand movements right, but it still took several tries before your magic did something.** _I guess so..._ **We don't run out of magic: we'll always be magical, but we can run out of our magic reserves, which causes magical exhaustion. Which therefore leads to physical exhaustion and is why you're overtired.** _Thanks, Tom._ **Don't worry, I'm your friend. I'm always glad to help.**

What Tom had said was true, as far as it went. Magical exhaustion came from doing spells too fast for the magic reserves to refill, or doing spells that required a large amount of power. Except the first year spells did not require much power to perform, nor were they performed in such numbers to cause exhaustion. Any pureblood or half-blood would have known that.

A Muggleborn? They just accepted what they were told.


End file.
